Slow Touring

Hiking, it's not fast but it's never boring.

I have been a constant traveler for most of my life, work resulted in my making over 120 trips to China over 30 years and numerous trips to Europe and the USA. Between these work trips I would often holiday in Europe or the USA.

Many of those holidays were road trips, consuming hundreds of kilometres each day in the mad desire to see it all. A few years ago I discovered bicycle touring, first was a series of long distance rides in country Australia and mountain biking  in the USA, then a few years ago I rode from Passau in Germany to Vienna. These rides were a revelation, around 5o kms. each day with your luggage transported by the tour company. Completely independent from any other groups of riders, start and finish whenever it suited each day.

I realised when I did the first of these European rides that I had in the past confused quantity with quality. Distance traveled and the number of places seen is not a good indication of quality in my opinion, it was once but it's not now.

I have just spent three weeks in Germany, instead of moving on every day I spent three nights in most places, travel between the towns and cities was done by train. I chose the locations that offered multiple hiking and biking opportunities. Some days it would be an all day hike or bike ride, others were spent exploring the towns, villages or cities.

I did stay in two larger cities that are popular tourist destinations, that was a mistake. Trier and Freibourg. They were noisy, expensive, packed with people, souvenir shops and buskers, they were more like theme parks than genuine cities.The smaller towns were completely the opposite, the people were friendly and the hotels and apartments were a fraction of the price.

Each day you burn off plenty of calories so the strudel, beer and schnitzel is not a problem. It is a relaxed and enjoyable way to spend a few weeks and it forces you to interact with the people and the environment rather than being insulated in a car, bus or cruise boat. It's a very cheap way to travel, accommodation away from the main tourist areas is much cheaper and often it's possible to get a three room apartment for half the price of a small city hotel room. Some good hiking shoes, a quality backpack, a few dry sack bags to protect your camera and phone and if you are in an area with hills or mountains a good set of hiking poles. That's it, the cost each day is just a few euros for food and drink. Many of the apartments we used provided free bikes if we felt like a change from hiking.

The first stop was Koblenz, it is a large city but not too popular with tourists, it's also at the junction of the Mosel and Rhine rivers, the Moselsteig and Rheinsteig start outside your door, cycle paths run beside both rivers.

Burg Eltz.

This hike starts at Moselkern which is a 40 minute train ride from Koblenz, it finishes at Müden which is also on the main rail line. The hike is approximately 11 kms. Fairly level on the way to the castle but with some steep climbs on the way to Müden. There is a good cafe on the way to the castle where you can get coffee and delicious cakes for about €4.

Hatzenport.

On the main railway line a few stops before Moselkern, this is a 13.4km  out and back hike that takes you up to the top of the escarpment and then through farmlands and oak forests before returning to Hatzenport from the opposite direction. This hike uses part of the Moselsteig and Traumpfade trail system and can be found here , we used an Android app called Locus, downloaded the GPS files from Traumpfade and bought some offline vector maps from Locus for a few dollars. We could see exactly where we were on the trails at all times and did not need mobile data.

Zell.

This is a beautiful small town, located on both sides of the river with a footbridge connecting the two sides. On the first day we used the free bikes to ride 40 kms. into Cochem, it was a really nice ride but the town is so over commercialised and overcrowded it was good to load our bikes onto the train for the return journey to Bullay. The bike ride took just over three hours to go from Zell to Cochem, the train back to Bullay which is 6 kilometres from Zell took 7 minutes.The following day we headed up, almost straight up to the top of the escarpment for a 10km. hike. As we often do we self catered most dinners, the apartment had a balcony overlooking the river. Good quality wine was €5 per bottle.

Bernkastel Kues.

This mid sized town is on the verge of being spoiled by tourism, you need to be on the move early before the hordes descend around 10am. The hike we did started from the same street as our hotel and basically went straight up, about 400 metres of climbing before you reach the top. A lot of the hike is in thick forest until you break out into farmland and then great views at Maria Zill, where we had lunch, home made of course made with fresh brötchen from the bakery. The descent is through the vineyards shown in the last photo, restaurants and small wineries are located along the walking path. It's very difficult to starve or die of thirst in this country. As with all hiking and biking paths in Germany the signage is very good but best to also have a GPS of some sort.

Freibourg.

Not for me, too crowded, too many souvenir shops and buskers and it's expensive. Walt Disney does Germany.

The good news is that within 50 metres of the start of the hike up to Rosskopf you have left all of that behind. It is a huge nature park but best not to attempt it unless you have a GPS, there are trails everywhere. It is used for walking, hiking, mountain biking, nordic walking and going on the number of empty bottles some serious drinking close to town. Once you have done the first lung busting 100 metres of the climb all traces of graffiti and drunks disappears.

Most of this hike is in the forest but if you make it to the top you are rewarded with a spectacular view from the 90 metre high observation tower. I suffer from vertigo so getting to the top of the tower and taking a few photos there was a big challenge.

Füssen.

Another tourist town but the region is so beautiful it's easy to escape the town and get out into the countryside. There are enough hike and bike paths here to spend weeks exploring. We stayed about 6 kms. from Füssen at Hopfensee, a small lakeside village. Great hotel, a bus at the door every hour to get into Fussen or to other small towns in the area.

The weather was not kind here but we did manage a 19km. hike to Neuschwanstein Castle and the two lakes in the mountains behind the castle, Alpensee and Schwansee. It was a memorable day, beautiful countryside, idyllic villages, deserted hiking paths until we got to the 2km. road up to the castle. Thousands of people fresh off the bus, all racing to the top so they could take a selfie in front of the castle before racing back down again. Only 10kms. from the Austrian border here so they probably had to get to Innsbruck, Salzburg and Vienna in the afternoon.

The small train that you take to get from Augsburg to Füssen is reason enough to make the journey, the last 40 minutes of that train ride are spectacular.

If you have made it this far I hope you have enjoyed the journey, we certainly did. Slowing down works for us, the only changes for the next trip is to spend more time in each place and completely eliminate large and touristy towns and cities.

For anyone who is interested all photos were taken with a Sony a6000 and the standard 16-50 kit lens, I have not done any post processing.