April 12, After Work

Lately, I have been on more walks on my own than with company. My sister has been busy looking after a friend who was undergoing cancer therapy, and so I was mostly by myself. If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know that I don't mind that at all, but of course I miss my sister when we don't get to see each other as frequently as usual. Naturally, a friend in need takes precedence, but now that said friend is getting better and does not need my sister's help every day anymore, we will be out and about together more often again.

View from my kitchen window at 6:21 in the morning

The 12th of April was a warm day at 20 Celsius. Good part of the day was sunny, but by mid-afternoon, another swathe of dust from the Sahara covered much of the sky. Much as I love being out in the sun, my eyes are very light-sensitive and don't deal well with bright sunshine, something that has become more pronounced since last summer's operations. Therefore, I did not mind the sky being greyer by the time I finished work, and went out.

Some days, I have a pretty good idea of where I want to walk; others, I just have a vague general direction in mind and more or less follow the path on a whim. That day, I had the exact route in my head, and only towards its end did I cover  paths I was not familiar with, while always knowing where I was, and where I needed to go.

Starting out from my house and walking past the deer park, across the road to the ruins of the castle above Hoheneck, I spotted the ferris wheel even from there:

Can't see it? How about now:

There it is!

From here, I walked along the top of the vineyards and orchards on the slope this side of the river Neckar. By now, you will all be familiar with the landmarks here; the "rocket", the river and the beautiful white building of the Schiller Museum at Marbach, one of my work places. 

This is where I left the familiar path and followed signposts I had not paid attention to before. You can see the Schiller Museum overlooking Marbach in the distance:

A better view of the museum; I loved the way it looked from there, framed by the trees in their white spring dresses:

This was still part of the official path:

It went on across these fields and would have taken me all the way down to the river and into Marbach itself, but I took a left turn shortly after this picture was taken, and walked into Benningen, where I boarded the local train home:

Looking back the way I'd come, just before 7:00 pm.

One last glimpse at the museum.

I greatly enjoyed this walk and hope to repeat it soon, maybe with my sister. The few people I met along the way were mostly working on their allotments or in their vineyards; there were hardly any cyclists and only one or two walking their dogs.