In fall of 2013 we walked the western part of the Lahn Wanderweg – a long distance footpath between the Westerwald and Taunus regions along the Lahn river; rather close by, occasionally further off (and therefore, on higher grounds) but not as far off (or high) to call it a ‘Steig’ – such a path usually follows higher grounds.
We camped in Diez, and started the tour from Limburg an der Lahn, walked along the river to Lahnstein, on the Eastern shoulder of the Rhine – opposite Koblenz. This took four days – and the remaining two we did two more sections, East of Limburg. This way, this walk covered the whole part of the river that runs from East to West. The remainder runs from North to South, and will be covered another time.
Part of the route between Limburg and Lahnstein has been covered earlier – the area, anyway.
The whole route has been tracked and imaged.
Tag: Germany
Rhein-Nahe Weinwanderweg (2012)
In fall 2012, we had a week of walking in Germany: we found the Rhein-Nahe Weinwanderweg, from Kirn to Bingen, along the Nahe river that runs South of the Hunsrück. Given the name, the route runs through vineyards on the slopes of the hills.
When we arrived, is was pouring with rain, and using a wooden cabin was just a little bit more expensive as setting up the tent – so we decided to go for the cabin. Just this first day was rainy, the remainder of the week the wather was fin – though the mronings would be chilly and therefore misty; But during the day, the fog would disappear and we would walk in bright sunlight.
The images and tracks can be found on this spot.
Germany 2011
This year, we made two short holiday trips to Germany.
In spring, we made a short break on the eastern slopes of the Sauerland. We stayed at a camping site in Barntrup and we made longer walks from the site, and from Bad Driburg; some of these are part of the Hermannshöhen collection of routes. The tracks have been recorded, and the tracks with the accompanying images can be found here.
In summer, we spent out annual summer holiday in the South of Germany, on the German-Austrian border.
Our first four days were spent at the Bodensee, at a comping site at Linday, quite close to the border. Here we rode our bikes and made boat trips to get to our starting point, or returning to the site. One of these trips lead us through three countries after crossing to Switzerland, and riding back along Bregenz (which is Austria…), we took the opportunity to transport our bikes up the Pfälzer mountain by cable train, and decended from there. Most tracks have been recorded, and the tracks with the accompanying images can be found here.
The fifth day we drove along the Deutsche Alpenstrasse to Berchtesgaden, parked our car there and walked a long distance way circling the Berchtesgadener and Salzburger Land; overnight we stayed at B&B of small hotel. This 160 km route, with a total ascend (and descend) of 5000 meters, took one week – over 20 kilometers a day, and, except for the last day, at least 500 climbing.
From this walk, all tracks have been recorded, and the images, and all tracks, can be found here. This also contains photograhps taken in and around Tittmoning on our way back home.
Note: My normal lens was broken, I could only use my larger lens, so I had to do a lot of combining and stitching, and the results are bigger tha ususal
Harz 2010
After our RheinSteig walks, we headed East to the Harz – a mid-range mountain area, wooded – and once a major element in the Iron Curtain that devide Eastern Germany – the communist German Democratic Republic – DDR – and Western Germany – the capitalistic German Federal Republic – BDR.
We stayed at the camping site of Hohegeisz – a village on the edge of Western Germany: some backyards literally a few feet away from the former boundary.
Our first walk was into the woordland to the West of the village – to a location named “Nullpunkt”: Point Zero. From what: probably the starting point of trigoniometric measurements? but that is defeated by it’s loxcation: in the midst of mountains. Or a location from where logging was started?
The second day, we drove a little North to start a walk up the Brocken mountgain, the highest peak in the area, and now a popular destination for walks – or a train ride using the narrow gauge railway that leads to the summit – here the former espionage buildings now house a meuseum.
Our third day we joined a tour in the former boundary area; a no-go area for DDR citizens; our guides were a former GDB customs guy, and the major of a former DDR village. Part of that journey was a ride with the Harzer Schmallspur Bahn – the narrow gauge railway kept alive because of it’s value for the local people.
No maps or tracks for these walks – I lost the tracking data and I don’t have maps to reconstruct them – but the images are available.
Rheinsteig: Leutesdorf to Braubach
Since our last walks on this track, back in 2009, we ended up in RheinBohl – just south of Bad Hoennigen. To close the gap, the route would lead us over the flatlands around Neuwied, on the opposite border of Koblenz. But thinking we ended in Leutesdorf, we started our walks there – leaving a day’s walk gap to be closed some other day: From Rheinbohl to Leutesdorf.
We parked our car on the city parking in Leutesdorf, not too far from the station where we would pick up the route. The first day brought us to Rensdorf, where we stayed in a just open guesthouse – wanderers only – for a reasonable price. The next day we headed out for Sayn, but since the nearest railaway station is near Bendorf, we had to proceed several extra kilometers – making a detour that we found out the next day. We rode back by train – over Koblenz Central Station – and picked up up our car, and drove to a camping site over Lahnstein – directly behind the castle.
The next day, after passing to Bendorf Station by car, we took the short route from the Bendorf station to Sayn and walked to Ehrenbreitstein – the route officially passes over the fortress grounds but restauration works were underway for an exhibition, so we had to follow a less interresting diversion – not too clearly signposted at the end. Back by train and car, to the camping site.
The last day was a relatively short walk from the station at Eherenbreitsten to the burrough of Braubach, where we had started the route in 2007. From there, we made our ride to the Harz.
Of course, there are the images – but no real-time tracks, since the tracking files were lost … But I.ve been able to reconstruct them. You’ll find both images and tracks here
Rheinsteig: Bonn to Rheinbohl
The Rheinsteig passes the Eastern banks of the Rhine, between Bonn and Wiesbaden, altogether about 270 kilometers. We’ve done the part between Braubach – South of Koblenz – and Wiesbaden in previous years (Fall 2007 we did Braubach to Sankt-Goarshausen and in September 2008 we covered Sankt-Goarshausen to Wiesbaden). So this year we started the Northern part, from Bonn to Braubach. We only had five days to walk – we made it to Rheinbohl, North of Neuwied. These walks passes most of the Siebengebirge, that is mostly covered with woods. More to the south, the flat lands on top are open, and the slopes to the Rhine may have been covered with vineyards – if not abandoned.
We camped on a site in Bad Hoennigen – the only one we could locate in a reasonable distance of the path – but since all walks would start and end in a city having a railway station, we could do with a drive to the destination station, travelled by train to the start of the daily walk, and walked back to the car. It meant a ascent from, and descent to the station, that you had to do the other way the next day – at times short and steep, at times shallow but over a long way. Except for one, all walk were under 20 kilometers, but each looked well over due to the profile: going up and down almost all the way. In all, we did about 80 kilometers in those five days.
These are my impressions and tracks