It’s been a short while since I’ve posted but we’ve been busy! When we left Frankfurt, we made our way south to Munich for one night before both our dads (neither of whom had met) flew out to meet us to walk 110km or 70 miles over 6 days to complete “King Ludwig’s Way”. I’ll spare you the full history lesson - albeit quite interesting and worth looking into more - but King Ludwig II of Bavaria ruled from 1865 - 1886 and is perhaps most well known for building Neuschwanstein Castle. He was a many of lavish tastes more interested in architecture, opera and the arts than ruling. This led to him being declared insane and removed from the throne. He was found dead in Lake Starnberg with his doctor the very next day…
Which unsurprisingly, is where our walk began. I think the main thing that really struck us all was how beautiful and picturesque Bavaria was. Each day we walked along a well cared for trail flanked by uncut meadows being grown out to use as silage once the winter rolls in. There were rolling hills, forests and lakes on the early stages of the walk and by the end of day two of walking we even saw the Swiss Alps looming in the distance. A sight none of us got sick of. Weather wise we lucked out as well. It was only the last hour and half on the last day that it actually rained. Otherwise we mostly had glorious sunshine and bright blue skies.
It wasn’t just the landscape that we enjoyed about Bavaria but also the small towns and villages we walked through. Bavaria is a devoutly Catholic area and it seemed like every small town had it’s own ornate and pristeen church, chaple, abbey or monestary. Genuinely astounding and breath taking. I’d say the stand out (for me at least) was the Andechs Monestary. The monestary itself was atop of a large hill dominating the landscape but the real attraction was the brewery run by the monks. It might sound like an exageration but it was probably the best beer I’ve ever had. We mostly encountered friendly Germans wishing us a “guten tag” or ‘Servus” which a waitress at a cafe told us is a common greeting Bavaria meaning “service” in Latin. We did however, inspire ire in an angry older German man (or at least that’s what it felt like to us) when we tried to take a photo of his vintage motorbike with a sidecar.
It was such a special experience getting to spend so much time with both our dads. It’s not often we get to spend a whole week with them let alone in the fashion we did. Everyone had their roll on the team. The dads were in charge of navigation, Elen was “Maetro of Moral” and I was on translation (due to the fact I speak the most German). We got to where we needed every day, in good spirits and (largely) understood what people were saying or what was written down.
As we arrived in Füssen, it did feel a little unceremonious due to the lack of any real marker to say the trail was done (apart from an arrow pointing back the way we came). We celebrated with some beer and wine that evening before visiting Neuschwanstein Castle the next day. We had a couple of nights in Munich before the dads flew back and Elen and myself headed to Salzburg. All of us already planning a similar adventure next year.