The Happy Hermit

In the King’s Footsteps (Day 6) Walden

Posted on 2020-10-10 by Andreas Moser

Zur deutschen Fassung dieses Artikels.

The birthday begins, and this is a fitting metaphor for my whole life, with me oversleeping.

Rottenbuch has, not surprisingly for the area, a pretty church and a monastery. For once, the convent seems to be active, as shy nuns are scurrying across the town square with its huge trees.

Only a wedding ceremony in front of the townhall disturbs the idyll by propagating the Bavarian cliché of dirndls and lederhosen.

Yesterday, Christina and Cordula told me that this cow-skinning kitsch is even sold in the northern Hanseatic cities during Oktoberfest time. At Aldi.

Speaking of Aldi, many people don’t know that despite German reunification 30 years ago, there is still Aldi North and Aldi South. Like in Korea. It’s because their separation goes back to the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. But this article certainly does not suffer from too few historical digressions, which is why it is hereby abruptly discontinued like a special offer prohibited by the Federal Competition Authority, who swiftly filed for an injunction.

However, please allow a personal explanation, which, it can be assumed, will not take long to cut the corner back to history. When I disclose, or when people find out some other way, that I am from Bavaria, I am often asked if I wear lederhosen. “NO!” is the emphatic answer.

Why?

Let me explain:

First, for aesthetic reasons. Shorts are okay for children, for sports and maybe for mailmen. Otherwise, this bad habit, adopted from the Afrika Korps, is plain wrong.

Second, I don’t exactly associate lederhosen with the Intelligentsia, to put it mildly. At least I never hear guys in lederhosen, almost always with a beer bottle in their hands, discussing decolonization or Pierre Bourdieu, although the latter would be quite interesting in this context. I think these are rather unsophisticated folks who enjoy watching football. This may be a prejudice, even an unjustified one in certain cases, but I see no reason to disfigure and spoil my habitus like that.

Third, the Bavarian garments as they are worn today, especially the oversexualized dirndls, are a remnant from National Socialism. You don’t believe that? Then read or listen about it.

But when I was a child, I too was forced to wear such stupid pants:

My parents have not apologized until this day.

In the church, there is a stamp that can be pressed into a pilgrim’s passport. When you mail in the fully stamped passport, you get a pilgrim’s trophy or something like that.

And, so I have heard, in some hostels you get neither admission nor accommodation without a pilgrim’s card. This seems to me not only bureaucratic and unchristian, but also unfair. Because sometimes you pass through a village at a time of day when all churches, monasteries and other places with stamps are closed.

“How does it work with the Way of St. James?” I have to ask the more experienced readers. Is such a stamp card really a requirement for accommodation?

In the bread and pastry shop, there are very fine things on both sides. Because it’s my birthday, I treat myself to a bar of chocolate. There are several on offer, all with different fairytale motifs. I choose the one with “Hans in Luck”, because luck is what I need. And the fable about achieving happiness through overcoming material possessions somehow suits my life.

As I step out of the bakery, I spot a cute little bunny. There it is already, the sweet little luck.

Under the big trees, I settle down for a while. As in so many villages along the trail, my gaze falls on a monument to the locals who didn’t find the way back from the wars.

These villages are not big, maybe a hundred or two hundred houses. But on the obelisks, there are often more than 50 names of men who now contaminate the groundwater at Verdun, Ypres, Uman or El-Alamein. Fortunately, they came from a region where they only consumed beer brewed according to the Purity Law.

Over these heavy thoughts, the clouds are getting dark.

Not having come very far yesterday, I want to walk at least 20 km to Trauchgau today. Halfway there is Wies Church, one of the highlights of the hike, as acknowledged by UNESCO.

Because there is the threat of rain, I try hitchhiking. (On one’s birthday, one shouldn’t march oneself to death, like the men on the monument in the middle of the village.) But it doesn’t work. Dozens of cars, but nobody stops. Strange, because I look rested and clean. And Rottenbuch had made such a nice impression. It suffers with every driver who ignores me until I curse the place and wish a hellish thunderstorm upon it.

Not even the chocolate gives me hitchhiking luck. Bitter and depressed, I have to move on by foot. But the views are truly wonderful.

Sometimes, Bavaria does indeed look like a fairytale. These cows probably provided the milk for the chocolate I’m enjoying at the moment.

The next village is Wildsteig.

Below the church, there is an artificial grotto, dug for saints and Mary and Jesus and such. Two construction workers are occupying it now for their lunch break. Goats are grazing the steep slope below the church.

Apart from that, there is nothing happening here.

The war memorial, which is enormous for this small village, suggests that a large part of the population is indeed dead or missing.

The occasions on which the men of the village got on horseback, on bicycle and on the train to conquer the wide world are meticulously listed: Austrian campaign 1800-1809, Prussian campaign of 1807, Russian campaign of 1812, French campaign of 1813, German-German war of 1866, German-French war of 1870-1871, World War I, World War II. Finally, the fallen of the Bundeswehr, although I am not sure whether the contemporary German Army sees itself in such a line of tradition.

100

The church in Wildsteig also offers a pilgrim’s stamp and a guest book. I browse curiously and discover a lot of blah-blah, just like in the poetry albums in elementary school and on Facebook. A woman signed her entry about clouds and happiness with “Uta Hahn, poetess”, rather immodestly.

What is clearly missing here is some constructive criticism. I can help with that:

Witnessing the wealth of the churches around here, one longs for another round of secularization, preferably to set up affordable hostels for hikers,

I add.

101

Sometimes the way markings of the King Ludwig Trail are not sufficient. Or I overlook them because I am exhausted or distracted. Furthermore, I forgot to bring my glasses.

“You want to go to the Wies?” a woman calls out of the window.

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Then you’re going the wrong way. You have to turn left and walk down that way.”

“Oh, thank you very much!”

That was really nice.

102

But the clouds are becoming darker and more threatening.

My thunderstorm curse (chapter 98) worked. And then, like all cursing, it backfired, because now the thunderstorm is chasing me.

And all this while I’m walking down a dirt road in open country instead of under the protection of the dense German forest.

But there is something ahead: A chapel! Faster!

Oh. With my luck, this one chapel was constructed in violation of the building law regulations for chapels next to hiking trails, offering no canopy to protect from the rain. Somebody wanted to save some money, it seems. And it’s pouring like in Genesis 7:11.

But then I read the note next to the doorknob: “Turn knob to the left.” It works, and I enter the sanctuary. It is small, very small, because a grating blocks access to the pews and to the altar. Together with my rucksack, I fill out the small anteroom completely. If other walkers will seek shelter, we will have to stand like candles in a chapel.

The rain is pelting against the door, the roof, the windows. It is a deluge that would have thoroughly ruined my day and my mood if I hadn’t just passed the Trinity Chapel in Holz.

There is a brochure “Church in Need” in the chapel, and for once, the title is fitting. Maybe my comment in the guest book of the church in Wildsteig (chapter 100) was too ungrateful after all, and I should be thankful for the open doors.

Hans in Luck!

103

After about half an hour the downpour is over. Due to my own measly financial situation, I only throw a few poor coins into the donation box and move on.

But not for long, because the sky dims and darkens again. After the last rain it is hard to believe, but there is still water up there. And that water wants to descend to Earth, probably because of this stupid gravity thing.

Should I return to the protecting chapel?

No. Forwards always, backwards never! And once I reach Wies Church, I can take shelter again. I am leaving the marked hiking trail because I think I see a shortcut through the forest on the map.

I am not even deterred by the gallows standing at the side of the path.

Oh, that’s for the vultures who are picking up the dead here.

I sneak on as quietly as possible.

104

Out there, always expect the unexpected: Out of the fog emerges a refuge, as if placed there by fate. A proper spacious cabin, with roofed benches in front of the house, where I settle down immediately, because it has started raining again.

There is also a guestbook, but only few visitors seem to stay here. The last detailed entry is from June 5th, one month ago:

Pascal Perkams & Henning Beckhoff had a wonderful night in this rustic hut after several weeks of touring the Alpine landscape in five gears. By candlelight, the two men remembered past journeys like “Down to Greece” or “Onekickonly” and philosophized about the meaning of life. Ever critical of capitalism, they were grateful for this night in the absence of any civilization.

The capitalism-critical colleagues did not leave any candles, but when I enter the hut and spot a writing desk, the decision is made: I will stay here.

I take Henry David Thoreau’s book from the backpack and can hardly believe my luck. On my birthday and without looking for it, I have stumbled upon the Walden cabin.

Hans in Luck!

Instead of a pond, there is a cow pasture behind the cabin, and the cows are quite curious.

A heartfelt thanks to Farmer Neu from Morgenbach, who made his property and the cabin accessible to the public, and to Leonhard Hitzl and Johann Niggl, who constructed it. You guys saved my night, because that one would have been rather uncomfortable outside.

105

I am still a long way from the destination I had planned for today, but you don’t give up on such a great place to sleep. Especially because it is still raining, only briefly interrupted by rainbows.

If I moved on, I would only get soaking wet, angry and sick. I’d rather stay in the cozy cabin.

The wooden door cannot be locked. Which makes sense. After all, it should also offer shelter to other hikers.

Will someone else show up tonight?

If so, they will hopefully have food with them. Because I was smart enough not to pack any food today, because I thought: “I will be at Wies Church at noon and there’s definitely something to eat there.” Well, now I’m sitting in the forest with a miserable rest of chocolate.

Hans remains hungry.

But he is satisfied and is still happy about his luck. Instead of dinner, there are cigars. Finally a hotel where you get to smoke in bed!

106

And then it is dark. Pitch black dark.

When the clouds lift briefly, the full moon shimmers through the cracks in the wooden wall. But otherwise, I see nothing. I just listen. Rain. Wind. Cowbells.

Were there voices? I don’t move. If they will enter the hut, they will be just as scared of me as I am of them. – But they were only cyclists passing by.

In front of the cabin, there is a wayside cross, which reminds me of the opening of “The Hateful Eight”. In the movie, it was not a good sign for those who thought they found refuge from the snowstorm in the lonely cabin.

Maybe the guestbook is so empty because hardly anyone survives the night here?

Would Hansel and Gretel have been the more appropriate chocolate bar?

Links:

Here you can find all articles about King Ludwig Trail. The report about the next stage will be published next week. Just check in regularly or get an e-mail subscription to make sure that you won’t miss anything.
There are more reports about hikes from all around the world.
Have you noticed? The whole (un)eventful day cost me 0 €. Travel can be so cheap.
If I survive the night, the next stage will take me to Neuschwanstein Castle. If you want a postcard from there, support my blog before it’s too late!

Posted in Germany, History, Photography, Travel | Tagged Bavaria, hiking, King Ludwig Trail, Rottenbuch | 11 Comments

In the King’s Footsteps (Day 5) Ammer Gorge

Posted on 2020-10-03 by Andreas Moser

Zur deutschen Fassung dieses Artikels.

At 4:30 am, there was light. A coal tit chose exactly the conifer above my head to conduct a concentrated concert. Apparently it noticed that I am not quite dead yet, as are the rest of its listeners.

It wasn’t much sleep, certainly no quality sleep, but I heed the wake-up call. One advantage of cemeteries: There is always water for washing and brushing teeth.

For once, at least I get up in time for the sunrise. A few photographers, who have thundered up the mountain road with their motorcycles, are wondering who is that guy staggering out of the cemetery, still wrapped in a blanket because of the cold.

The tavern, which hasn’t been of much use or help, does not open until 9 am. I don’t want to wait that long for an overpriced breakfast. So I start the steep descent, my legs trembling from cold and tiredness. I take a rest on the first bench which is illuminated by sunrays and enjoy the relative warmth, the view of the mountains and of balloonists, who must have risen early as well. Soon, I nod off and catch up on an hour of sleep.

In the village of Hohenpeissenberg, I find nothing to eat either. That is bad. Because after that, we will reach the Ammer Gorge, which is supposed to be beautiful, but I don’t think there will be a bakery or anything. This is going to be a hard day: nothing to eat for more than 24 hours, hardly any sleep.

I am on the road so early that a fox scurries across the meadow into the forest. Its night shift is over. I hope it was successful.

There is a picnic table in the forest, which I convert into a bed. Again I fall asleep immediately, probably for another hour. I seem to have quite a lot to catch up on.

Waking up from my dreams, I am grumpy with hunger, tiredness and the prospect of the exertion to come. This will not be a pleasant day, I realize.

Just as I’m getting ready to get moving again, the pilgrim I met in Andechs a few days ago (Chapter 28) comes along with a colleague whom she picked up on the way. Both are fresh, happy, rested and energized, a stark contrast to myself.

Nevertheless, we continue together, and Christina and Cordula are distracting me with conversations, making the physical ordeal much more pleasant.

Soon the river rushes by, unfortunately in the wrong direction to build a raft and drift south. But poor Ammer river has to go north to fill up Lake Ammer and then flow further north as the river Amper. As such, it lives up to its name and powers several hydroelectric plants, including the oldest one in Germany, in Schöngeising. Well, not even the river can just flow for fun in this market economy, where everything has to be profitable and come with dividends and rewards.

But I have not yet learned anything about the political views of my new hiking colleagues and therefore I want to refrain from agitating too much.

Probably because it’s the weekend, there are a lot of cyclists and pedestrians along the river. It’s really turbulent compared to the last quiet days, where I sometimes met nobody for hours.

At the Kalkofensteg, where the river Ammer describes a narrow arc and thus creates a bathing spot, the wheat is separated from the chaff. Nearly everybody runs into the river, sunbathes or does other mischief that people like to do near water.

We, the tough folks, climb up the steep and overgrown slopes on a narrow path. Now, the real gorge, the wild part, begins.

Wait a minute, that’s a photo from Chapada Diamantina in Brazil, which has slipped in between. A subtle reminder that it is worth to read the older stories on this blog, too.

But back to Bavaria:

The Ammer is much wider and wilder, the way through the gorge more dangerous than I thought. Because I’m from Ammerthal, through which runs a measly Ammer creek, I always thought the Ammer is an equally shallow water. But no: This is more like the Mackenzie River in Canada. Canoeists and kayakists are rushing through the rapids.

The path through the gorge is the most dangerous part of the whole hike. At times only 50 cm wide, often unsecured, sometimes blocked by fallen trees, it leads along a slope where you could fall up to 100 meters into the deadly abyss and be turned into electricity. One wrong step, just one slip, one short inattention, and the story would end right here.

I don’t have many photos of this route, because the two women are pilgrimaging ahead at a fast pace. And they have to wait for me too often already.

One reason is that I am carrying the heaviest backpack. Especially Cordula seems to be very experienced (well, that I would be too) and has learned from experience (which seems to be my weak point). With water and food, her backpack weighs a maximum of 7.5 kg. She cuts a block of soap so small that it is just enough for the days of the hike. At home, she collects toothpaste tubes and shampoo bottles with remainders for a few days, which she then takes on the hike. The second shirt serves as a towel.

From these ladies, I can still learn something.

Books, however, are the weak spot of all three of us. Christina has a whole library on her e-book reader, but also the hiking guide for the Munich St. James’ Way in paper form. Even weight-saving Cordula has three books with her. “Too many, of course,” she admits, but that’s an experience that every reading hiker makes. You always imagine that you will sit by the lake and read for hours, but in reality you are too exhausted in the evening. Or you are chatting with others. And in my case, I still have to write, because you, esteemed readers, want to participate in my suffering for some sadistic reason.

This time I didn’t stick to it myself, but I recommend to take books that you don’t want to keep after reading. I leave them in hostels or on park benches, hoping that someone else will enjoy them. Cordula does the same, and because she is more organized, she has a box for these books in her apartment, labelled “transient literature”.

As we are resting high above the Ammer Gorge and the roaring river, Christina, who as a theologian probably remembers Saint Martin, shares her only cheese sandwich with me.

That really saved my day.

The women are happy to finally be able to talk to a Bavarian whom they understand. “I really did not understand the woman who ran the accommodation in Hohenpeissenberg, even when she repeated it twice. She must have thought I was stupid, because I just smiled and could not answer.”

Christina and Cordula are from Hamburg and Bremen. They are now in Southern Germany because the North and Baltic Sea are full of Southern Germans. Because of the restrictions in international travel, the Germans are finally getting to know their own country. (It’s the same with me. Without the corona virus I would have been in Kiev again this summer.) Hopefully there will be just as much exchange between West and East Germany, because 30 years after reunification, it’s about time that we get to know each other.

There is no language barrier between us, but I do lack knowledge of some Bavarian customs. They ask me about the meaning of the maypoles, which are standing abandoned in the villages, and my vague explanations are so obviously deficient that Christina says: “I have to look it up again on Wikipedia.”

On the other hand, I can damage the cliché that all Bavarians are beer-drinking and conservative-voting Oktoberfest visitors. When I tell them that I am not walking the St. James’ Way, but the King Ludwig Trail, I can already see what they suspect, although they phrase the question diplomatically:

“In Bavaria, many people would like to have a king again, wouldn’t they?”

“Well, I certainly don’t,” I clarify right away. As the princesses and princes among the readers have already noticed, I could hardly be more anti-monarchist. “But I think it is not a specific wish, but rather some diffuse sense of nostalgia.”

“I don’t understand it myself, because I definitely have no desire for undemocratic kings. Although,” I must mention, “Bavaria was already a constitutional monarchy during the reign of Ludwig ll (1864-1886). It had a constitution with citizen’s rights since 1806, and a parliament with elections since 1818. The king was no longer an unrestricted ruler, his decisions required the countersignature of the ministers, who, by the way, he consistently recruited from the liberal camp.”

There is now probably no country in Europe where people speak more freely, write more freely, and act more openly than here in Bavaria,

cheered Paul Johann Anselm von Feuerbach, usually a rather critical voice. And Bavaria really was a pioneer in many things. To pick virology as a topical example: in 1807, Bavaria was the first country in the world to introduce compulsory vaccination, against smallpox. Something like Bismarck’s social legislation already existed in Bavaria 30 years earlier.

The women from the north, which since the cruel Viking Age has considered itself the more advanced part of Germany, are astonished. But after all, it was the German regions south of the Danube that once had a taste of Roman civilization.

“Unfortunately”, I continue, because once I have been asked a question, there is no stopping me, “a nostalgic image of Bavaria is represented by the State of Bavaria itself, especially in tourism, but also in museums and exhibitions. And thus, everyone knows the castles, the mountains, the beer, the traditional costumes and other traditions, some of them invented. But nobody knows that Bavaria was a socialist state for a short time in 1919. Nor is the role of Bavaria in the establishment of National Socialism mentioned sufficiently. Instead, people celebrate a king who drove Bavaria into bankruptcy with his building mania”.

“Where did the money for all those magnificent castles come from anyway?” they ask. For Ludwig II built not only the famous Neuschwanstein Castle, but also Linderhof Castle, the Royal House at Schachen and Herrenchiemsee Palace, a veritable replica of Versailles. Plans for three more castles were already in the drawer.

“You will never guess. The money came from Bismarck, from Prussia.”

“What?” they both exclaim in shock, and I realize that I have to explain this quickly, otherwise nobody will believe anything I say anymore.

“Ludwig II was King of Bavaria during the time of the German-German War, during the German-French War and when the German Reich was established in 1871. All of these were events of which he thought very little, because they kept him from the theater and the opera. Especially the foundation of the German Empire under the leadership of the stuffy Hohenzollern clan was difficult to convey to the Bavarians and their king. Ludwig II suggested that the German imperial crown should alternate between the Wittelsbach and the Hohenzollern families, as it does between conservatives and progressives in political parties. In vain.”

With the founding of modern Germany, Bavaria lost its importance, and Ludwig II was painfully aware of this.

Woe betide that I of all people had to be king at such a time,

the Bavarian monarch wrote in 1871,

Since the conclusion of those unfortunate treaties [on the foundation of the Reich] I have rarely had happy hours, I am sad and upset.

He was as depressed as a British Prime Minister finding his country in the European Union. Defiantly, Ludwig II stayed away from the proclamation of the German Emperor in Versailles.

“It was only when Bismarck offered annual payments of 300,000 marks and a number of special rights for the Kingdom of Bavaria that Bavaria too agreed to the foundation of the German Empire”.

In short, one could say: Without Neuschwanstein Castle, there would have been no united Germany.

However, the buildings and the ties with Bismarck will ultimately cost the Bavarian king his life. But I shall tell this story later, to avoid that one of the listeners will throw herself into the gorge out of desperation.

The special rights for Bavaria included the preservation of its own army (even in World War I, Bavarian troops fought alongside German troops), its own railroad and postal service, tax sovereignty for beer and brandy (quite in keeping with the cliché of drunk Bavarians), and the independence of the CSU, the Bavarian conservative party, from the CDU, the German conservative party.

And when the German Chancellor is visiting the Bavarian Prime Minister, she is naturally invited to one of the castles built by Ludwig II. This is the Bavarian boastfulness that sometimes gets on the nerves of the rest of the republic.

This Herrenchiemsee Palace, the reflection of Versailles, then played a role in the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany. But this belongs in a separate article, not only to prevent the present one from getting out of hand, but also to justify a separate trip to that castle in a lake.

Because we are walking the narrow path along the abyss of the Ammer Gorge, the two pilgrims cannot escape and have to listen to my introductory course in Bavarian history, which probably tires them more than the hike itself.

Keep in mind: Never go on a hike with me if you just want to relax!

The two women have planned the stages of their walk in advance and today they will come to rest in Rottenbuch, which we should reach in the early afternoon. I, on the other hand, have not planned anything at all, but I don’t want to exhaust myself either. They keep talking about an art café in Rottenbuch and of the cakes they are looking forward to. The prospect of cake keeps me going, I don’t even want to think beyond that.

And as we arrive and enter, there are photos on the wall from Bolivia, my favorite country, as you probably know. The mother of the owner spent a month in Bolivia and brought back photos and wonderful memories. That makes the decision easy: I am going to spend the night in this nice establishment.

In the beer garden, I am boring the hiking buddies with anecdotes from the Andean state, but at least we are having apple spritzer and apple cheesecake with it.

When I fill out the registration form, the receptionist asks me why I am not staying at home. I find this a rather intrusive question, because the Gestapo usually comes only later in the evening to leaf through the guestbook. But when she sees the postal code, the misunderstanding clears up: Shockingly, there are two villages in Germany called Ammerthal. In one of them, I am spending my sad existence when I’m not on the road, the other is just one kilometer away from Rottenbuch.

What a coincidence!

If there is a guy living there who is also called Andreas Moser, then I finally know who receives all the packages that never reach me.

Sadly, the receptionist overlooks the second coincidence, although I noted it conscientiously and truthfully in the form: Tomorrow is my birthday. Due to this oversight, I am not offered a free stay, as would be recommended by the (admittedly non-binding) guidelines of the hotel and restaurant association.

Regarding the night, I can only say that it feels much better to sleep in a bed than in a cemetery. But one can’t afford luxury every day.

Tomorrow, I can tell as much, it will become really uncomfortable. Get a warm jumper and a cup of hot chocolate before reading on!

Links:

Here you can find all articles about King Ludwig Trail. The report about the next stage will be published next week. Just check in regularly or get an e-mail subscription to make sure that you won’t miss anything.
There are more reports about hikes from all around the world.
I could only afford the 39 € for the hotel thanks to generous support by readers of this blog. If you like the account of this hike, and especially if you feel inspired to go out yourself, I would be happy about your support for further work. Thank you!

Posted in Germany, History, Photography, Travel | Tagged Bavaria, hiking, King Ludwig Trail, Rottenbuch | 2 Comments

Why is German reunification celebrated on 3 October?

Posted on 2020-10-03 by Andreas Moser

Today, Germany celebrates the 30th anniversary of the reunification of East and West Germany on 3 October 1990. The history buffs among you will know that the Berlin Wall fell almost a year earlier, on 9 November 1989.

west_and_east_germans_at_the_brandenburg_gate_in_1989

So why did reunified Germany choose the 3rd of October as the new national holiday?

3 October 1990 was the day of official reunification, as the East German parliament had voted on 23 August 1990 for accession of its five states to the Federal Republic of Germany (this was the quickest way because it did not require the founding of a new country with the implementation of a new constitution, as the West German constitution conveniently had always included a provision to allow new states to join the Federal Republic of Germany) to occur on 3 October 1990. The date was chosen because the two German states had agreed on holding the first federal elections of reunified Germany on 2 December 1990. (West) German election law demanded that voters be registered 8 weeks before the election, which made 7 October 1990 the cut-off date for voter registration. The reunification therefore had to happen before this day. Also, 7 October was the national holiday of East Germany, and nobody knew how to “celebrate” it that year. So, better to make the country disappear before then.

If you think that all of this sounds a bit hasty, it certainly was.

You can see from reading this first paragraph that these political and legal proceedings are far less catchy and memorable than the fall of the Berlin Wall. So the question remains: Why did Germany not choose 9 November as the new national holiday? Surely Germans would prefer to celebrate the opening of the Iron Curtain, the end of oppression, the spread of freedom, instead of a date in a parliamentary protocol?

The problem was that 9 November had not only brought the fall of the Berlin Wall, but had proven to be a surprisingly significant date in German history on many previous occasions:

– 9 November 1918: Philipp Scheidemann declares the “German Republic” (to become the “Weimar Republic” in 1919), thereby ending the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II and German monarchy.

– 9 November 1923: Adolf Hitler attempts to overthrow the young German democracy with a military coup. The coup attempt in Munich fails after a few hours, but leaves 16 people dead. Unfortunately, Hitler didn’t give up and came to power (through elections) 10 years later. During the Nazi dictatorship, 9 November was a national holiday.

– 9 November 1938: In organized pogroms against Jews in Germany and Austria, more than 1400 synagogues were destroyed, many of them burnt down completely with the fire departments idly watching, thousands of Jewish homes and about 7500 businesses were destroyed, around 400 Jews were murdered and 30,000 Jews taken to concentration camps in the following days alone. This marked the beginning of open and systematic destruction of Jewish life in Germany (although social, political and economic discrimination had begun in 1933 already), ultimately to result in the Holocaust.

– 9 November 1989: Throughout the summer of 1989, East Germans had fled the country via other Eastern European countries which had opened their borders to the West, especially Hungary that had opened its border to Austria. Facing a mass exodus of its people, the East German government tried to regain control over the events and planned to announce an easing of travel restrictions, to come into effect on 17 November 1989. At a press conference on 9 November 1989, a spokesperson who had not been fully briefed announced these plans. When he was asked by a journalist when this would enter into effect, the spokesperson babbled “as far as I know, effective immediately”. The news spread within minutes and thousands of East-Berliners stormed towards the Wall where the border guards were overwhelmed because they had not been given any instructions. The guards were vastly outnumbered and nobody in the East German government gave orders to use the shoot-to-kill policy (which had been applied before against East Germans attempting to flee the country), leaving the East German border police no other chance than to open the gates. A peaceful revolution had been successful, there was no turning back any more.

9 November is therefore undoubtedly an important day in German history, but while some events are worthy of celebration, others are worthy only of shame. Most people in Germany found it a bit too tricky to have a national holiday that combines festivities and celebrations with somber commemoration. And who knows what else will happen in or to Germany on 9 November in coming years…

Links:

More about history.
And more about Germany.
By the way, for German reunification day, it is customary to send a present to your German friends. ;-)

Posted in Cold War, Germany, History, Holocaust | Tagged Berlin, Berlin Wall, German history, Hitler, Nazis | 19 Comments

For my Chinese readers

Posted on 2020-09-28 by Andreas Moser

Writing a blog for an international audience is very complicated.

People in California are never awake when I write in Europe. People in Australia and Argentina are reading it upside down. And in China, when you want to access my blog, the government may tell you that it’s not a good idea to waste time like this, advising you to focus on your homework instead.

But, as I experienced myself when I was in Iran, people often find a way around censorship. And thus, over the convoluted jungle paths of Samizdat, some intrepid and fearless writer in China discovered my stories and made it her mission to translate them into at least one of the hundreds of languages of China.

If you read Chinese, you can find the story here.

Or if you have friends in China, you can print the story and mail it to them. I think that’s what the crazy button on the top right is for, but I don’t know much about technology. By the way, did you know that movable-type printing was invented in China 400 years before Johannes Gutenberg claimed his invention? The world’s failure to recognize this was the reason behind China’s long-standing reluctance to join the WTO.

What I like about translations in China is that the original title is prominently displayed, not like in other countries where you have to search for the original title with a microscope, if it is included at all.

Im Westen nichts Neues

Oh, and here is the English version, so you can enjoy the romantic story without going through a confusing course at the Confucius Institute.

Links:

More about translations and about languages.
More about China, although I still haven’t been there myself, which means you should take everything with a grain of Himalayan salt.
And more romantic stories.

Posted in China, Language | Tagged censorship, translation, writing | 11 Comments

In the King’s Footsteps (Day 4) The Longest Day

Posted on 2020-09-26 by Andreas Moser

Zur deutschen Fassung dieses Berichts.

Two fishermen go to sea and I have the whole shore to myself.

At 8 o’clock, I snuck out of the cozy house without waking my hosts, because I wanted to catch the first ship that departs from Breitbrunn.

Will it even bother to make a stop for one single lonesome passenger?

It does, more punctual even than the railroad. The captain calls me through the loudspeaker, allowing me to take off the antivirus mask as I am the only one sitting in the wind at the bow.

From aboard the ship, you have a beautiful view of Diessen, featuring the church tower of the cathedral from chapter 42 most prominently. And behind it, I can already see High Mount Peissen, the highest point on the hike, which we should reach by tomorrow. I don’t like the thought of climbing it at all.

And another thing strikes me as I stand at the lookout, happy not to be a captain, because I would constantly get lost like Columbus: Outside of Diessen, several suspicious, huge installations glisten in the light of the morning sun. They are actually top secret, but I will reveal their secrets in chapter 60, accepting all the dire consequences that may ensue.

Diessen is very nice on the second visit, too, but the weather is even nicer, and thus I am drawn further south. Let’s see how far we will get today, because I have not planned for any accommodation.

At the end of the town, just before Schacky Park, there is a hitchhiking bench with several fold-out signs, where you can indicate your destination. I fold down the sign for Raisting, the next village. The King Ludwig Trail doesn’t really go through there, but I’m curious to see if it works.

Just a the sign falls into position, the first car brakes sharply. It is a young man who often uses this opportunity for a lift himself. Whenever he can, he takes hitchhikers with him. His little son has gotten so used to it that he thinks it’s great. Even when the car is full, the child thinks that you have to help other people. He then offers to climb into the trunk to make room for others.

“And where shall I take you?” he asks.

“Where are you going in Raisting?”

“To the butcher’s.”

“Then I’ll join you, I have to buy breakfast anyway.” And I like coincidence to guide my ways instead of plans or maps.

The butcher’s shop Weichart, founded in 1923, when Bavaria experienced a state of emergency and Hitler’s failed coup d’état, is very popular. Six hungry customers are already waiting in front of the store. It will be a bad day for the little pigs squeaking in the backyard.

But that’s how you get into a conversation, which of course soon revolves around my hike. “Where will you be sleeping tonight?” a woman asks. As she realizes that I have no idea yet, she offers: “If you are walking towards Diessen, you can stay at my house. The whole upper floor is vacant, you’ll have a wonderful view of the stars.”

If I accept every invitation here, I’ll never get away from Lake Ammer. But once again I am touched by the warm helpfulness. Does it only happen in this area? Or is it only this year, possibly as a positive side effect of a deadly but decelerating epidemic? Have people realized that there are more important things than work and money and competition and performance? Does the lack of regular social contacts lead to more openness towards strangers?

On the further way through Raisting, photographers with telephoto lenses are following me, as if word of my passage had already spread or was announced in the local newspaper.

Until I realize that they are here for storks.

The village of Raisting probably doesn’t ring a bell, although this is the place that makes all the literal bells ring. This is where your internet connection, your telephone line and your television program come from, at least if you live in Europe. Between the fields, there are dozens of giant antennas with diameters of up to 32 meters, which also search for aliens and control rockets and satellites. When a meteorite speeds towards Earth, the people here are the first ones to know about it. And if the meteorite hits right here, you’ll have to do without Facebook and Fox News until the internet and TV will be rebuilt from scratch (which hopefully wouldn’t be done).

A farmer chugs past on an old tractor as if to enhance the contrast between agriculture and technology.

In the middle of the 5G machines there is – maybe as camouflage, maybe it was there before – a small church with shade-providing trees, several benches and a view of the mountains that invites one to take a rest. Many cyclists come by, most of them electrified, as you would expect in such a high-tech region.

An old man follows on his rollator. His family had ventured ahead on their bicycles, probably hoping that he would get lost in the space radio antenna jungle and be taken to Guantanamo by the Counterintelligence Service. But someone who once found his way home from the Eastern Front cannot be shaken off that easily.

In the course of the day, I see barns again and again that are open on one side. Apparently, there is no theft here, maybe no crime at all. These would be perfect accommodations to spend a dry night.

But it is still too early.

So on we go.

While I am thinking of the open barns, the open houses, the open cars and the open people who invite me in, I wonder why other people are afraid.

“But this is dangerous!”

“I wouldn’t dare do that.”

“Oh my gosh, I hope nothing happens.”

These were some reactions to the announcement of this hike. People associate forest and nature and outside with danger, although many more people work themselves to death in offices, drink themselves to death in restaurants, or drive themselves to death on a highway.

Some friends from other continents do not even come to Germany at all anymore, because they read somewhere that we were overrun by wild hordes and that Sharia laws apply here. (Which, by the way, the little pigs from chapter 58 would welcome.) These people believe that a country that has twice reduced Europe to rubble and ashes suddenly becomes dangerous because there are now some people among us called Ali or Samira instead of Hans or Franz.

Perhaps one should only judge countries after having crossed them on foot. But always stay on the paths! Otherwise the wild bull will tear you to pieces.

The road to Wessobrunn is long, the sun is scorching, and the long stretch on the tarred road is an ordeal for the feet.

Time to hitchhike.

But this time, it doesn’t work. Car after car rushes past me, the drivers stubbornly looking ahead as if they hadn’t noticed me. Until after 20 minutes a friendly couple stops, two landscape gardeners on their way to an appointment: “We always stop for hitchhikers, that’s only natural.” So natural that I wonder what the preceding 57 drivers were thinking to let a hiker rot in the son. Husband and wife, who are spending their weekend working, drop me off in Wessobrunn directly in front of the monastery.

The small villages here have monasteries larger than small towns. Or had monasteries, I should say, because the secularization of 1803 destroyed a lot. Have I already explained about secularization? “Yes, more than enough,” the readers scream out in panic, referring me to chapters 49 and 50.

This is how the fraternal facility used to look like:

Only a third of the original complex is left, but even the remains do not fit into one photograph.

Wessobrunn was not only large, but also one of the great art and cultural sites of the German Middle Ages. Firstly, because of the specific stucco art which was developed here and which was applied in about 3000 churches and palaces throughout Europe. The highlight of this creative period is the world-famous church of Wies, which we should reach in a few days. Secondly, because of a language document, but I will come to that during my nap under the lime trees a little bit later (chapter 65).

Due to the accumulation of unfortunate circumstances, I arrived one hour late for the tour of the monastery wing, which is why there is only one cheekily stolen photo of it:

But apparently it was cheap to buy once it was ultimately abandoned in 2012, because it was bought by a natural cosmetics manufacturer who runs her oversized store there. The nuns aren’t picky. Another monastery, the Maltese Castle in Heitersheim, is being sold to a member of the Chinese National Congress who wants to open a cadre school there.

A hostel would be a better idea, because I am still looking for a place to sleep.

Every monastery has an absurd legend about its foundation.

In Wessobrunn it is said that in the year 753, Duke Tassilo III took a break from the hunt, laying under a tree and thirsting mightily. In a dream, angels then pointed out the way to three springs. When he woke up, he actually heard the water rushing and discovered the springs.

Well, I do believe that it had something to do with drinking, but that’s about it.

But I am going to try it myself and lie down under the three lime trees in front of the monastery.

The first part of the plan works out: I nod off immediately. However, under the centuries-old trees, no beer, no water, but only a stone appears.

The menhir with the Wessobrunn Prayer keeps distracting me from sleeping:

Dat gafregin ih mit firahim firiuuizzo meista
Dat ero ni uuas noh ufhimil
noh paum noh pereg ni uuas
ni […] nohheinig noh sunna ni scein
noh mano ni liuhta noh der mareo seo

It is one of the earliest texts in Old High German and the oldest Christian poem in German language. I understand so little of the Old High German that I would outright deny any relationship to contemporary German. Hopefully, I will not experience a linguistic regression in my lifetime, because I really wouldn’t want to speak like that.

Do dar niuuiht ni uuas enteo ni uuenteo
enti do uuas der eino almahtico cot
manno miltisto enti dar uuarun auh manake mit inan
cootlihhe geista enti cot heilac

I lie under the green canopy of leaves like Athanasius Kirchner in front of the Egyptian hieroglyphics. My unsuccessful attempts at deciphering are probably merely a pretense for not continuing with the hike. But it is only afternoon, too early for the night’s rest.

Well, I will look for the springs then, because, remembering the legend, I realize that I could use some water, too.

Behind the monastery, there is a pretty little house and a roof over the three holy springs. (This is where holy water comes from, and maybe this is how the convent-confiscating cosmetics company finances itself.) But they were really not hard to find. I don’t know why you have to have nightmares about angels and divine finger pointing.

The next destination is the yew forest near Paterzell, which sounds somehow mystical and tempting.

From the hiker’s point of view, however, it turns out to be more of an arduous up-and-down forest with deep incisions and brook valleys.

And the promised yews?

Honestly, I don’t spot them. I am not a botanist, after all. This forest is not more beautiful or less beautiful than the beech forests I have been walking through. I could have spared myself the detour. Besides, yews are poisonous.

At the exit of the toxic forest, a bench invites me to spend the night. I’m giving it a test, it feels good, but it’s still too early.

The next inn would be the “Bavarian Hiasl” in Forst. I should still be able to make the few kilometers if I hurry. And if I don’t get shot by the gang of the Bavarian Hiasl. They were a rather brutal but also partly generous gang of robbers and poachers in the 18th century, whose leader Matthias Klostermayr, the so-called Bavarian Hiasl, was the model for Karl Moor, Robin Hood and the bulletproof monk.

The readers benefit from the fact that I can abbreviate in writing what I could not abbreviate on foot, and so I transfer us to Forst about an hour later.

The inn is really there, big, angular, massive, unmissable.

But no longer active. The trees are already growing out of the windows on the upper floor. Or is this a mirage, confusing tired hikers?

Perhaps the inn has been closed since 1771, when the Bavarian Hiasl was executed with exaggerated meticulousness, namely strangled, crushed, beheaded and quartered.

Again and again on my hikes, I come across such testimonies of once active life, which are now decaying. The inns occupy a prominent place in the center of the village or a particularly beautiful spot by a rushing brook. Large lime trees still provide shade and coziness. You can still hear the beer hissing and the schnitzel steaming. But the shutters are shut, the kitchen is closed, the stomach remains empty.

This is not only a pity for the culinary enjoyment I am missing out on. On the one hand, it was reassuring to know on journeys that one could rest and even stay overnight almost anywhere. This may seem unbelievable to the AirBnB generation, but in the past, you just hiked or drove until you couldn’t or didn’t want to anymore, and then you looked for a place to stay. There you asked for a vacant room. There was always something available. Traveling itself was more free, more spontaneous.

On the other hand, inns offer the lonely hiker the opportunity to get into a conversation with the locals. Often the same people are sitting together every evening and are happy when someone shows up with a big backpack and unpacks new stories. Once, without being asked, the innkeeper sat down at my table and told me, also without being asked, why more and more inns are closing. Missing customers are not the problem. Lack of staff is.

“Nobody wants to work 16 hours a day anymore,” he complained.

“And it would be illegal,” I thought to myself, but said nothing.

“Young people are all about free time. They want to know on Monday what time they have off on Friday evening,” he was puzzled.

I didn’t know what to think, because I was torn between delight at the increasing emancipation of the working class, which no longer regards itself at the free disposal of capitalists, but disappointed at how the young people would probably spend their Friday nights off. I may inadmissibly generalize the occasional experience I have made with rural teenagers, but I imagine that the young waiters and cooks would rather get drunk and then crash into a tree than to discuss Marx and Hegel with their friends.

“And the laws are made by people who have no idea. Take Ms. Nahles,” who was Secretary of Labor at the time, “she studied for 32 semesters, but never did any real work.”

I could have pointed out that studying can also be quite exhausting. Or that the overestimation of physical versus mental work is a leftover from fascism. Or that laws are made by parliament, not by federal ministers.

But I preferred to say nothing, because the innkeeper had just crossed out the gypsy schnitzel on the menu and renamed it paprika schnitzel, so he was generally open to social progress. And he made an effort, offered higher than standard wages, offered accommodation for applicants from afar, but still: “The young people want to work in the office, with computers and all that.” And in the disdain of people who believe that social media content feeders or Instagraph influencing data analysts are more important than publicans and cooks, the old innkeeper and I could agree.

I would have a proposal against the death of the taverns, but it is just another theoretical solution by someone who has been studying for so long that he no longer counts the semesters. Inns as rooms of public gatherings could be counted under the utilities that municipalities have to provide in accordance with Article 57 paragraph 1 of the Bavarian Municipal Code (or similar regulations in other states), so that in the absence of private facilities, the municipality must operate a beer garden in summer and a parlor with a tiled stove in winter and offer currywurst and Kaiserschmarrn.

The State of Bavaria has recognized the problem, but ever since it was a Soviet Republic in 1919 for a brief time, it has been so afraid of public property that it prefers to waste 30 million euros, handing over money to existing pub owners.

As the sun is inching towards the horizon, the search for a sleeping place should put any revolutionary thoughts on the back burner. Disappointed by the people of Forst, who failed to celebrate my ideas jubilantly, instead sitting at home and watching football (TV and the internet have done much more damage to pub culture than employment laws), I set my sights on a new target. A high and far-away target, the highest point of the hike, High Mount Peissen, almost a thousand meters high.

There is a tavern up there, and with my luck, they should have vacant rooms.

10 kilometers lie between me and the summit. The sun is getting ready for bed already. This is going to be close. I definitely must stop dawdling around.

Without energy, but with all the more doggedness, I am forging forward, fighting fatigue, killing kilometers, waging a war against the weight of my backpack, defying all doubts, and ignoring the improbability. And always a worried look back: What is the sun doing?

It is falling rapidly. Without pause and without mercy. In the forest, it is already pitch dark, the sun glows its last red through the branches, needles and leaves. My lungs are bursting as I am almost running the last two kilometers uphill. It’s incredible what reserves one can activate when necessary!

And then the sun finally burns out, just before I make it to the summit.

A candle is burning in a chapel, as if to beckon me: Why don’t you sleep here?

It’s spooky, but if I had known where I would end up spending the night, I might have settled in the dimly lit temple. But neither I nor you know about the impending midnight scare yet.

The hope for the tavern on top of the mountain drives me on. I wonder how long it will be open? I haven’t eaten since the sandwich in Raisting in the morning, and this damn mountain is getting steeper and steeper.

To the pain in my lungs now comes a headache, but I feel like the first marathon runner, the one from the battle between Athens and Persia, who had to transmit the “νενικήκαμεν” at all costs because the Greek telegraph authority was on strike, on summer vacation or on siesta at the time.

Finally on the summit, I can take a breather and am rewarded with magnificent views.

But now quickly to the Bavarian Rigi, as the guesthouse is called here.

“Do you still have a room for tonight?”

“We don’t have any accommodation.”

“Oh. Do you still serve food?”

“I’m sorry, but we’re about to close.”

“Oh. Could you fill my bottle with tap water then, so I have something to brush my teeth with when I sleep outside?”

The lady complies with the plea, but the discreet hint of my impending homelessness does not soften her up enough to slip me any leftovers.

It has become cold and the wind is blowing hard. Probably because there is a weather station up here, and the weather wants to put on a show. And it’s not just any weather station. High Mount Peissen houses the oldest mountain observatory in the world, built in 1781, when Bavaria was not even a kingdom. (Speaking of which: Did you notice that I am so exhausted from hiking today that you have to do without the long monologues about Bavarian history? But I will make up for it tomorrow, I promise!)

In the meantime, it is less about the weather, but more about the climate. Because of its 240-year history, the collected data is particularly well suited for long-term comparisons. And the location is exposed and far away from conurbations, which can falsify the temperatures at other measuring stations due to increased building development and higher traffic volumes.

Tired and a little desperate, I let myself fall onto a bench. Only then do I spot the full moon.

It makes the green hills of the Alpine foothills shine in silver. Like a night watchman on his last tour, delighting in the beauty of the landscape and the peace and quiet that he himself imposes.

But on the exposed bench, the wind is blowing like a hurricane, and young people from the nearby towns apparently find full moon romantic and come here to hold hands. There is more activity up here at night than in some towns during the day. A group of blonde, hence probably Russian, youngsters has set up a large antenna and is sitting in their Volkswagen Polo with radios and headphones to listen in on the German military radio. The KGB is becoming more and more brazen.

I wander around, looking for a place to sleep, having lost any hope to find food. (The three pizza boxes in the trash next to the bench were all empty.)

The most wind-protected place is, as sorry as I am for proponents of the sanctity of burial grounds, the cemetery. Even at 10:30 p.m. two mourners still place flowers on a grave in the candlelight, so I have to go for another walk through the cold. But at 11:00 p.m. they have given up their attempt to bring the deceased back to life, and I have the final resting place alone for my temporary rest.

I put on both jackets, lie down on a bench, use the backpack as a pillow and cover myself with a blanket that the dog has already bitten holes in. I don’t carry a sleeping bag, because pilgrims of previous centuries managed without this modern plastic stuff too. Besides, I don’t like to be constricted when suddenly people with guns, knives or swords stand around me.

It is not comfortable. Nor is it warm. The red grave lights flicker like ghosts warning me. The fat moon shines in my face like a searchlight. “You are not safe here!” the pale moon face seems to signal, and I wonder how a celestial body without its own power source can shine so bright and cheerful.

But I fall asleep. Until a falling cone wakes me up.

I fall asleep again. Until my own shivering wakes me up.

I fall asleep again. Until drops of water fall on my face.

I turn around and fall asleep again.

Even the moonlight wakes me up. I fall asleep again.

Will I survive the night? Who comes to visit the cemetery at night? Are there ghosts? Will the wolves or the grave robbers come first?

Tune in for the next episode! There, we will hike through the Ammer Gorge, supposedly the most spectacular part of the King Ludwig Trail. And I won’t be walking alone anymore, that much I can already reveal.

Links:

Here you can find all articles about the King Ludwig Trail. The report about the next stage will be published next week. Just check in regularly or get an e-mail subscription to make sure that you won’t miss anything.
There are more reports about hikes from all over the world.
The 5G factory in Raisting even offers guided tours. They are really trying everything to appear innocuous.
The weather station on High Mount Peissen.
The third day of the hike cost 14.10 € for the ship from Breitbrunn to Diessen. This was made possible by donations to this blog and rewarded with a postcard. I would be happy to count you among the supporters of the next hike. Thank you!

Posted in Germany, History, Photography, Travel | Tagged Bavaria, Diessen, hiking, hitchhiking, King Ludwig Trail, Wessobrunn | 7 Comments

In the King’s Footsteps (Day 3) Lake Ammer

Posted on 2020-09-19 by Andreas Moser

Zur deutschen Fassung dieses Berichts.

On long hikes, I like to start early. The air is still cool, there is less lethal car traffic, and it leaves me with more time to take breaks along the way.

But Reinhard is sleeping late, and I don’t want to leave his house without saying goodbye. A few hours after me, he wakes up, goes to the bakery, prepares a full breakfast, and the discussion from the previous evening continues. In the end, I don’t put on my boots until 10:45. My goal today was to reach Diessen, Raisting, Wessobrunn and Paterzell. This has already become infeasible.

On the other hand, I have no more overnight stays fixed anyway, so I can continue the pilgrimage as slowly as I like and in the evening, I can drop to the ground wherever the Holy Spirit commands me to.

And it gives me the opportunity to cheat a little. In a place called Fischen, I have barely taken the rucksack from my shoulders and stuck out my thumb to shorten the 4 km to Diessen, as the first car stops. Not because of me, but because the driver’s daughter lost her pacifier. But he sees how happy I am about him stopping and invites me to get into the backseat next to the baby.

“Where do you want me to drop you off?” the father asks.

I need some time to write down the experiences of the previous day before new ones push their way into my memory and possibly get mixed up, faded or even lost.

“Is there a beautiful park in Diessen?” I therefore ask .

“A park? No. Diessen is just a small place, nothing special here.”

Well, then I’ll go to the harbor at Lake Ammer, that should be a relaxing place to write as well.

Here, a blue dot on a white background is flying in the wind. The “One World Flag” is a worldwide project, whose flags are sewn in Diessen. This fits with my blog, which is also read in almost every country of the world.

Apart from me, an elderly couple is sitting by the lake, luring the swans with dog food, while their little dog is roaming around sadly, wondering why he is not getting as much attention. If the swans don’t get enough food fast enough, they are hissing like hell. Only the watchful eyes of passers-by keep them from eating their own fluffy baby swans. If anyone were to consider these barbaric beasts as great animals, they would have to be as crazy as Ludwig II.

A short walk reveals that Diessen is by no means a boring backwater, but a stylish little town with a wealth of art and culture.

The gardens, even the backyards, seem like open-air museums. One of them has a wooden box for depositing haikus. Even the former railroad signal station has been turned into an art gallery. Many residents are apparently on their summer vacation and have placed wood-carved substitutes in the garden to look after the cats in the meantime. (Many people don’t know that I offer these essential services professionally, but for free, and that I would particularly love to do that in a nice little town like Diessen.)

For centuries, Diessen has been known for art and craftsmanship. In former times there were the potters, glaziers, tinsmiths and art blacksmiths. But also composers like Carl Orff or painters like Carl Spitzweg lived and worked here. There is more art here than in some metropolises.

It’s obvious that Diessen has a completely different population than Starnberg. More normal. More pleasant. More social, too, because instead of Versace stores there are second-hand shops run by the Red Cross and other non-profit organizations. Here, people donate. The millionaires in Starnberg are swindling and evading taxes.

Lake Ammer was often derogatorily called “the farmers’ lake” in contrast to Lake Starnberg, which was called “the princes’ lake”. I can hardly distinguish a potato from a pumpkin myself, but I feel more comfortable with the farmers.

Circus William, which is in town for a few days, is also asking for donations: “Animal food for 40 camels,” it says on donation boxes affixed to fences and lampposts.

In case one of the camels won’t make it, the kebab chefs are already sharpening the knives.

The British telephone box, which was converted into a little library, is probably a donation by the twin town of Windermere. The pretty little town on Lake Ammer and the charming town in the Lake District, that’s finally a town twinning that makes sense. Not as desperate as Winston-Salem throwing itself into the arms of Nassau on the Bahamas. Or Atlanta, which thinks it is playing in the same league as Tbilisi.

Diessen can be recognized from far away by the cathedral enthroned on a hill. The church is known as one of the most splendid ones in Bavaria, so I feel an obligation to the education-hungry readers that keeps pushing me uphill over the aching objection of my tired legs.

Well, it is splendid, but tasteful is something else.

And the German-nationalistic slogans above the lists of those who died in World War I are rather disturbing.

“For it is better for us to fall in battle than to witness the misfortune of our people.”

No, that is not better, because it is a false alternative. Maybe the church hasn’t noticed it yet, but the fighting and dying was the misfortune. And by the way: Other peoples have a right to avoid misfortune, too, including being spared the invasion of German troops, who really had no business in Belgium and elsewhere.

“To the fallen in memory, to the living in recognition, to the coming generations for emulation!”

No thanks, I don’t see anything worth emulating here.

Everywhere there are discussions about statues of slave traders, colonial rulers, confederate generals and Kaiser Wilhelm II, but in the churches there is so much nonsense that it makes you sick. That’s where one could start to clean up.

And then I find a park after all. And what a park! Schacky Park is more than a hundred years old, and it looks every year that it has seen. Steps are broken and sinking into the ground. Plant arms entwine around columns. The water fountains have dried up.

Wonderful! Much better than those posh parks, where every plant is trimmed and manicured. For me, this is a paradise. Good thing that the royal treasurer Baron von Schacky diverted enough thalers into his own pockets to acquire these 18 hectares, cultivate them and then let them become overgrown and decay romantically.

The park on the outskirts of the city seems to have been completely forgotten indeed. I do not see any other walkers, let alone any other vagabonds. And thus, I chose this park as the sleeping place for today. When I tell people that I sleep in parks, they imagine cruelly cold nights. But in some parks, you feel like in a castle. A castle just for myself.

But what if it rains, the concerned readers ask, still remembering last night (chapter 32).

Then I will find something against the rain, I reply carelessly and continue to explore the park until I really find something. A monopteros!

And even with curtains on all sides, to be lowered in case of a storm or other disturbing events.

This city is so social, everything has been thought of, even for destitute travellers. Thank you, I really appreciate this!

Penny- and parent-less children are thought of as well. Right behind Schacky Park, the first SOS Children’s Village in Germany was opened in 1958. Here, the orphans who managed to free themselves from the child-abusing monastery schools (see chapter 27) find a new home.

I hide my backpack into a bush, probably a completely exaggerated precaution, go to get a camel kebab and take a stroll through the park, remembering the history of ornamental hermits. In the past, when such parks still came with castles, some lords and ladies considered it decorative to keep a hermit in their park. These were supposed to live in a (usually artificial) cave or hut, were not allowed to shave, and provided exoticism and conversation at garden parties, a purpose for which people nowadays have dogs or children.

Well, in the old days, there was still work for people like me.

But now, everything has been made redundant. Very sad.

Into my dreams of old times, there burst a phone call and modern times. Michael, whom I only know online so far, read about the hike on my blog and is currently on vacation at Lake Ammer.

“Would you like to come by?”

“I’d love to!”

However, he lives in Breitbrunn, on the other side of the lake, which is completely the opposite direction of the planned hike.

“Then take the steamer,” he suggests. It leaves Diessen at 4 p.m. and zigzags to Breitbrunn for an hour and a half via Riederau, Herrsching and Utting. That sounds more tempting than walking around the entire lake. And besides, this is how I can justify all decisions: The readers also want to experience a romantic cruise and not just follow my boring steps on some forest paths. Right?

But there is no ship going back that day. So I have to cheekily ask Michael, who probably just wanted to meet for a beer, whether I can stay for the night.

“We’ll think of something,” he reassures me.

When I arrive at the harbor, out of breath and with only a few minutes to spare before the punctual departure, I am very happy about the decision. Because it allows me to present you the trip on a paddle steamer.

A beautiful ship, driven by two wooden wheels, like the steamers on the Mississippi. Lots of wood inside, too. The taps in the bathroom are gold-plated.

After a 70 year break, it is the first paddlewheel ship to be launched again, the Kaleun proudly announces. It’s a pity that the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles had brought all this maritime innovation to a full stop. However, he admits, the ship only looks like a steamboat. In reality, the paddle wheels are driven by two diesel engines, each of them harnessing 520 hp. But when you consider the capacity of 500 passengers, that’s still a better cost/benefit ratio than all those overpowered fat vehicles on land.

The public address system provides information of the type you usually receive on boat trips and which must already be annoying for daily commuters: Third largest lake in Bavaria. Up to 81 meters deep. Something wide, something long, 47 square kilometers in size. So there are states that are smaller than Lake Ammer (Sint Maarten, Tuvalu, Nauru, Monaco and of course the Vatican, but the entertainment officer doesn’t tell you that, maybe because there are no guests from overseas on board this year).

Because neither I nor you want to hear anything about the Würm glaciation or about endemic whitefish, I grab an imaginary beer mug from the closed on-board restaurant and get ready to finally answer the historical questions that have been burning under your nails since the first leg of the journey and that are pressing and pushing with each additional leg like blisters under your feet.

From the ship, I can see Andechs Abbey, which I visited only yesterday, and remember the vow made there (chapters 24-26) to tell you something about the good old days of secularization.

Secularization refers to confiscation of church property, usually land and monasteries, but also art treasures or libraries, by the state. This went as far as the annexation and incorporation of entire ecclesiastical principalities.

There had been some efforts in this direction before, but from 1802 on, Bavaria made a grand clean sweep. Almost all monasteries, cloisters, imperial abbeys and ecclesiastical principalities were nationalized. (This was the invention of communism, long before Marx and Lenin!) Only some monasteries were left as so-called extinction monasteries. There, the existing monks were still allowed to pray to no avail, but the monastery was barred from the transfer market and could not draft any new players.

The project was carried out the way Germans like to carry out things, i.e. with military precision. The first victims were the monasteries of the mendicant orders, for whom nobody else moved a finger. (“It’s their own fault that they are poor,” the rich often think of the poor.) Into the rich prelate orders, Bavaria sent commissars who listed all the gold, incense, and myrrh that was there. In 1803, the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss, which I won’t attempt to translate and which I will instead leave as anecdotal reason for the fact that German Scrabble boards are three times as wide as English ones, was passed. With it, the Holy Roman Empire gave the member states a free hand over the monasteries. Bavaria struck immediately, expropriating as mercilessly as the Land Reclamation Committee for the Construction of the Baikal-Amur Railway. Yet more evidence that prayers do not help.

Unfortunately, this secularization had two shortcomings:

First, only the independent monasteries and prince-bishops were expropriated, but not the Catholic or Protestant churches as such. The ordinary parish churches and cathedrals remained untouched. A missed opportunity.

Secondly, the churches have meanwhile secured fat compensation payments for the former expropriations. I could now confuse everyone with the Concordat between the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Holy See of 1817, why Bavaria pays the bishops’ salaries, the Concordat of the Free State of Bavaria of 1924, the introduction of church tax, the Concordat of the German Reich of 1933, the concordat professorships, as well as the question why the articles of the Weimar Constitution on religious matters still apply today.

Article 138 of the 1919 Constitution of the Weimar Republic demanded that the states replace the compensation payments with a one-time payment, but the German Reich was supposed to pass the framework legislation. This never happened. By the time the Basic Law of 1949, the constitution of West Germany, provided a new chance to clear up the mess, the matter had already become so conspicuously complicated that Article 140 of the Basic Law simply ordered the partial continued validity of the Weimar Constitution, hoping that no one would notice. In fact, no one seems to have noticed, because in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany, the constitutionally demanded one-time payment to end all ongoing compensation payments has never happened either.

And so, for more than 100 years, German taxpayers have been paying subsidies to the Catholic and Protestant churches because of the secularization of 200 years ago. Mind you, from the general tax revenue; this has nothing to do with church tax. The atheists are paying for the bishops as well. But well, this year it’s only a paltry 656 million euros. And the church shows its gratitude by not burdening state authorities with charges of child abuse, instead “taking care” of such criminal matters internally.

As the ship docks in Herrsching for a short stop, my eye catches a little castle in the spa gardens, which is modelled on an Italian noble palace.

Today it houses the municipal adult education center, where the smart ones become even smarter, and a wedding hall, where the not so smart ones ruin their lives.

I could tell you a lot more smart things, but I’m smart enough to recognize when the absorbability of the smart readership is exhausted. So let’s look at the lake, the mountains and the sun instead, let’s enjoy the gentle chugging aboard this marvel of German engineering, and let’s be happy about the invitation to Breitbrunn.

Michael is already waiting at the landing stage, where he informs me: “My wife was not at all enthusiastic about the idea of inviting a complete stranger.”

Oh, oh, the two of them are on vacation themselves, and now I intrude with my vagabondry. But when the lady of the house sees me a little later, her fear immediately gives way to maternal instinct, and she prepares fried potatoes with fried eggs. All evening, I will be served so much cheese, sausage and bread that it will sustain me for days.

Equally sustaining is the conversation with Michael. He has a packed life, reviews development aid projects all over the world, was a cameraman for the Foreign Legion in French Guyana, teaches photography in Sri Lanka, helps with the integration of refugees in my home town of Amberg and makes collections and deliveries for a food bank. All of this with the efficiency of a manager.

The hours on the terrace run quickly while we lose ourselves in stories from New York, Lagos and Vienna. Michael’s wife has already gone to bed. She calls him a few more times, ostensibly to ask if we need culinary or alcoholic replenishment, in reality probably to say that we should finally be quiet, because we are keeping the whole house awake.

Speaking of the house: There are two of them on the property, so despite my unplanned appearance I get one for myself. It’s the older and more beautiful one. It is furnished in a rustic style, with wooden floors, oak cabinets and a terrace with a view of the lake. In the fridge, there is Veuve Moreaux champagne and Bombay Gin.

And a few hours ago, I thought I would spend the night in the park.

One of the books I am re-reading on the trip is “The Time of Gifts” by Patrick Leigh Fermor, who on his walk through Europe was sometimes invited to manors and castles. At least today, I am just as lucky.

Tomorrow, it will be a completely different story.

Then, you can expect: The hardest day of the trek, a haunted graveyard, and the truth about 5G.

Links:

Here you can find all articles about the King Ludwig Trail. The report about the next stage will be published next week. Just check in regularly or get an e-mail subscription to make sure that you won’t miss anything.
There are more reports about hikes from all over the world.
The third day of the hike cost 14.10 € for the ship from Diessen to Breitbrunn. This was made possible by donations to this blog and rewarded with a postcard. I would be happy to count you among the supporters of the next hike. Thank you!

Posted in Germany, History, Photography, Religion, Travel | Tagged Bavaria, christianity, Diessen, hiking, King Ludwig Trail | 3 Comments

Hiiumaa, the real Adventure Island

Posted on 2020-09-15 by Andreas Moser

Zur deutschen Fassung dieses Berichts.

I have been on lots of islands, some of them far away like Australia or Easter Island. After paying a lot and polluting heaps of air to get there, I was wondering if it’s really worth it. And as a European, I have to say, it probably isn’t. Because there are thousands of islands all around Europe that are easy and cheap to get to.

Sadly enough, most Europeans don’t even know Sark or Zvërnec. And that’s why they toil for years to afford a trip to Galapagos, when they could simply walk out the front door and hitchhike to Hiiumaa.

Hiiumaa?

See, you never heard of Estonia’s second-largest island!

To be fair, neither had I until I lived in the Baltics in 2012. Rasmus, a young man from Estonia, was going to visit his grand-aunt on the island of Hiiumaa. He asked around if somebody wanted to join him. As trips to unknown islands in the colder region of Europe during the colder part of the year go (it was the end of October), not many people expressed their interest. I was one. The other was Rolando from Costa Rica, who was most certainly a spy because he spoke Estonian. “What’s there to spy on an island?”, you wonder, but you will be surprised.

The two of them went by ferry and I, for I was not as much of an environmentalist back then as I am now, had found a flight from Tallinn to Hiiumaa for less than 20 euros. But then it began to snow. A proper snow storm, which wouldn’t ease. No way the plane would take off in this weather. “That’s the end of the trip,” I thought, disappointed.

But this was Estonia, and although it was the first snow of the season, the airport was prepared. When planes took off, they simply had snowplows drive in front of them to clear the runway.

As we walked onto the airfield, already in the darkness of the night, I was almost freezing to death and blown away by the wind. It was a small plane, for 17 passengers. I was the only foreigner, it seemed, so the flight attendant came to my seat and translated each announcement for me personally. The plane was shaking and rocking and jumping in the air. I held on to the seat in front of me with both hands. Usually, I look at the other passengers in such situations, thinking: “Everyone else is flying this route more often than me, and they are perfectly calm. So this is nothing unusual.” On that day, however, the Estonian passengers looked equally scared.

But we made it.

The airport on Hiiumaa was just one building, where the family running the airport seemed to live, because it felt like walking through their living room as I picked up my bag. They had a beautiful cat strolling around, fat and golden, like Garfield. There was a bus waiting, and the driver took everyone to exactly where they wanted to go.

Rasmus’ grand-aunt didn’t have space for everyone, so I had booked a room with someone else. A family in Kärdla, which one could call the capital city of the island, although this makes it sound much grander than it is, had a separate building next to their house and showed me to my bed upstairs. When I asked for a key, they said: “You don’t need a key. We don’t lock the doors to the houses here.” I love islands for that.

Early the next morning, it was time to meet Rasmus and Rolando.

“How was the flight?”, Rasmus asked.

I told him, especially the part about everyone else looking scared, too.

“Of course they were scared. Because they all knew that last year, on the first night of snowfall, the plane crashed.”

Thankfully, the translating flight attendant had withheld that piece of information from me. And luckily, I had already arranged to return to the mainland with Rasmus and Rolando by car and ferry. No more flights for me.

Besides plane crashes, there seemed to be many mysterious deaths on Hiiumaa, because in every forest, there were cemeteries, hidden far from the road. Rasmus, who had spent his childhood on the island, found the way based on certain trees which to me looked like all the other million trees.

At the time, I didn’t spot it, but one of the crosses marked the grave of a similar trip to Hiiumaa two years before. Had I noticed it, I would have had a lot of questions. And I would have been more careful.

During the Soviet Union, Hiiumaa was a restricted military zone. This meant that foreigners and even most Soviet or Estonian citizens weren’t allowed to visit. The people who already lived on the island were allowed to remain, though. At least in theory, because in practice, many Estonians were deported to Siberia.

There were still plenty of signs from the Soviet time.

Like at most houses on the island, the doors to the bunkers stood open, which we interpreted as an invitation. Rasmus, a very organized fellow, had told us to bring flashlights.

I didn’t manage to take any good photos, but in some bunkers, we climbed down four levels, squeezing ourselves through narrow gaps in the concrete, holding on to rusty iron ladders. “Be careful not to get stuck on a nail, or you can get tetanus,” Rasmus warned us, and I was wondering: “Isn’t there much more danger in us getting lost? Or suffocating? Or getting stuck? Or the roof caving in?” Little did I know that this was nothing compared with the situations we would still get ourselves into.

But first some lighthouses.

Sadly, these were not open for us to walk into.

Nor was the Military Museum. But Rasmus knew the person who had a key, he picked it up, we guided ourselves through the museum, and we left some money on the table. As almost any place in Europe, Hiiumaa had been occupied by the German Army twice, once in World War I and once in World War II. And, as any place sandwiched between Germany and the Soviet Union, it had been fought over several times in World War II. Because the second of the Soviet occupations lasted much longer and into living memory, I had the impression that the time of the Nazi occupation (and especially the Estonian collaboration in the Holocaust) was sometimes glossed over too readily.

From World War II, the seas around the island are littered with shipwrecks, but a more recent naval disaster weighs more heavily on everyone’s mind. In 1994, the ferry MS Estonia sank northwest of Hiiumaa, killing 852 people. “For a few years after the accident, there were still bodies being washed ashore,” Rasmus remembered. Facing the direction of the maritime mass grave, there is a simple memorial.

In the evening, Rasmus and Rolando went to a sauna, which, after they explained the concept to me, I found a very dubious way to spend one’s leisure time. So, I walked to my accommodation alone through the cold night, guided by the full moon, which other people might deem a rather dubious way to spend one’s leisure time.

It rarely happens to me, but that night, I had run out of books. As I laid awake, I wrote my first story with a more creative aspiration than simply reporting the facts. And I learned that a secluded spot, cold climate and lack of distraction are important factors in my writing, a lesson which I have heeded far too rarely since.

After we had been underground the day before, the two young intrepid gentlemen wanted to climb some towers, not knowing that I am afraid of heights. Someone must have had a lot of time (and wood) on their hands and built a replica of the Eiffel Tower. He wasn’t home, but there was a jar into which we deposited one euro each.

It looks a bit shaky, doesn’t it? And the wind was blowing. But then I thought, the structure must weigh hundreds, if not thousands of kilos, so three slim guys won’t make much difference.

The higher we climbed, the more I realized that the creative lumberjack was in the process of rebuilding a whole Disneyland from wood.

I was ready to launch a tirade against deforestation until, finally at the top, I saw that I needn’t have worried. There were still plenty of trees around.

This tower was not the last one to climb, nor the scariest.

No, that one was okay.

But the next one, the concrete tower, had obviously exceeded its sell-by date and was about to collapse.

Large junks of the interior staircase were missing and we had to jump over abysses or use wooden planks to climb up. Then, we had to crawl through a window, jump from wooden plank to wooden plank around the outside to reach rusty metal ladders and climb to the top, where we sat on the “balcony”.

I have no idea why I went all the way up. But reflecting on this eight years later, I can at least say that I did mature in some way.

Actually, I learned the lesson quickly, because at the next tower, by the sea, I did refuse to climb to the top. That one really looked too fragile.

And the view from inside the bunker was beautiful enough.

Speaking of the sea, and unexpectedly hitting you with heavy history, people always associate the Iron Curtain with the Berlin Wall. But the Baltic Sea was the Iron Curtain, too.

And that is one reason why the whole island is criss-crossed with trenches, bunkers, watchtowers and barracks that now stand empty.

There are also remnants of villages, but even without taking a census, I had the feeling that the population was in decline.

Some of the churches were still kept in good shape, though.

Okay, the last one was not a church, but this very useful building was to be found in a churchyard.

Since Rasmus’ last visit, the gas station had closed.

But, as with everything else on the island, this just meant that we left some money in a jar next to the pump. And off we went, onto the ferry to the mainland, thinking once again of MS Estonia.

“If you come back in a few months, we can save the money for the ferry,” Rasmus said, confusing his friends from warmer climatic zones. In winter, the sea freezes over and the ferries stop. The 26 km between Hiiumaa and Estonia turn into the longest ice road in Europe.

“You take some precautions, and nothing should happen,” Rasmus said. “Turn off the radio, don’t buckle up, have your backpack in your lap and the windows open. Just listen to the ice and when you hear a cracking sound or you feel your car sinking, grab your bag and run.”

“Does it happen that cars sink?”, I asked incredulously.

“Yeah, sure,” Rasmus replied, as if speaking about a minor inconvenience.

“And what then?”

“You file a claim with the insurance company.”

Back on the mainland, the snowstorm was still raging.

But our host had one last idea on the way home: “In Haapsalu, there is a Soviet military airfield, as abandoned as everything you have seen on Hiiumaa. Let’s see if the gate is open.”

Of course it was open, and in the darkness of the night and the cover of the snowstorm, Rasmus used the runways to test to what speeds he could take his car. On the ice. There was no way to see more than a few meters through the falling snow, but I think we went up to 180 km/h.

“Don’t worry, guys,” he said, “I know that the runway is exactly 2500 meters long and I am watching the odometer.” It worked, but it was close.

We did a few more laps, one with the lights switched off, and Rasmus explained what was already obvious to everyone:

“My real dream was always to become a race-car driver.”

“And what work do you do instead?”, I asked the tower-climbing, tunnel-exploring, race-car driving, ice-breaking, death-defying and risk-taking young man, expecting him to be a stuntman or a Special Forces demolition diver.

“I work at a bank, in the risk-assessment department.”

Oddly enough, that information made me feel much safer in retrospect.

Links:

More about Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Tourist information for Hiiumaa.
If everyone leaves a coin in the jar, you won’t need to wait another eight years before I go to Hiiumaa again. Because there is actually much more to see and to report about than I could manage on that short weekend.

Posted in Cold War, Estonia, History, Military, Photography, Travel | Tagged Hiiumaa, sea, Soviet Union | 14 Comments

In the King’s Footsteps (Day 2) Andechs Abbey

Posted on 2020-09-12 by Andreas Moser

Zur deutschen Fassung dieses Berichts.

Yasmin and Basti are living a vegan-healthy lifestyle and apparently only have health-conscious friends. Because when I ask for a cola for breakfast, they are happy: “Oh, finally someone will drink the bottle of Coca Cola we have had in the cellar for ever.” It expired in May 2018, more than two years ago. Probably a leftover from their high school graduation ceremony.

The rest of the bottle goes into a package which, together with bananas and apples, is supposed to provide me with energy for the journey. Thus, I say goodbye to my new friends well-rested, well-equipped and in good spirits.

Yasmin’s parents live in Maising, the next village. Since the Corona virus, there are a lot more hikers coming through, they have already told her. “At first they didn’t dare leave the house anymore. They thought all the strangers were bringing the virus into the village.”

Maybe I should walk through the village wearing a face mask. But actually, rain cover is more important, even if only for a few minutes at a time.

Maising is such an insignificant village that it has put up a plaque that, referring to the first documented mention in 1182, at the time of the Crusades and the Genpei War, tries to construe a significance that the village, I am sorry to say, simply does not possess.

At least I learn from this plaque that the General Fellgiebel Barracks now house the German Army’s School of Information Technology, which explains the carefree way the military treated the hikers in chapter 11. The biggest danger there is probably that computer-gaming soldiers think that you are a Pokemon and briefly arrest you.

A dog is trotting after a lady on a horse, exhausted, panting, limping. And faithful. Because he could simply stay at home. After all, he knows that the lady will come back home eventually.

Or dogs aren’t as smart as cats, after all.

“Are you a pilgrim?”

“A secular pilgrim.”

“Nimma lang”, Bavarian for “not much longer”, a sign promises about the way to Andechs Abbey.

But it’s all going uphill. I am making such slow progress on the remaining 5.8 km that once again I walk straight into the midday heat. When I think of the monastery, I don’t imagine any churches or monks, I just dream of a beer garden in the shade of large trees.

But first comes a chapter from the popular series ” Appearance can be deceptive”. Look at these photos:

Isn’t that idyllic?

It is a prison.

The buildings of the former monastic reformatory now house chickens, goats and prisoners behind the barbed wire of Rothenfeld Prison.

The fences don’t seem very insurmountable, though. I don’t see a single guard. This is probably not the high security wing of the Bavarian penal system. Maybe it’s for the millionaires from nearby Starnberg, who have become rich through fraud, tax evasion and embezzlement, I suppose.

A ban on photography prevents me from taking close-ups. On the other hand, when you see a prison like this, you almost want to commit crimes and then write books in the quiet country estate atmosphere.

At the edge of the prison perimeter, I also find the perfect place to sleep: a bench under a canopy of leaves protecting me against sun and rain.

Unfortunately it is still too early to sleep. But a little bit of rest before the ascent of Mount Andechs is a good idea. In the short time that I am sitting here, I experience everything from sun to rain. The weather will keep changing all day long.

A couple walks by and kindly leashes their dog so that it neither eats nor licks me.

I take the opportunity to ask: “Do you know what kind of prisoners are incarcerated over there?”

They do know: “People like Uli Hoeness.”

Well, I wasn’t that far off with my guess. Uli Hoeness, the president and chairman of the supervisory board of Bayern Munich football club, had evaded 28.5 million euros in taxes. Another prominent inmate was Uwe Woitzig, a banker who was convicted of fraud in the order of several hundred millions.

Prisoners usually come to Rothenfeld Prison at the end of their sentence, when they are already free to leave during the day. This means that they go to work outside, for example for football clubs, banks or other criminal organizations, and return to the prison in the evening to sleep there. For the sake of justice, let us hope that this possibility is not only open to millionaires. (This goes onto my list of things that I need to check personally, so I can report back to you.)

The way to Andechs is easy to find. For one thing, the monastery is enthroned on a hill, visible from afar, which is supposed to produce the thirst that can then be quenched with the famous monastery beer.

Second, the path follows the Way of the Cross.

The Way of the Cross is divided in numbered chapters, almost as logically as this blog. At station VII, Jesus sinks down. First the dog, now the god, all of them exhausted creatures.

Besides the beer factory, Andechs Abbey runs two expensive restaurants, a store, a drug dealership (“Abbey Pharmacy”). Well, if there weren’t that many people leaving the church, the monks wouldn’t have to be so mercantilistic.

However, they were already quite greedy in the past. In the 9th century, rapacious Rasso brought relics from the Holy Land, i.e. looted art, to Mount Andechs: a piece of the Cross of Jesus, part of the Crown of Thorns and the Holy Three Hosts. Pilgrimages have been documented since 1128 at the latest; not voluntary pilgrimages, by the way, but by order of the Count of Andechs.

At that time there was no monastery yet, but the castle of the Counts of Andechs, who ruled not only over the surrounding fields, but – as Dukes of Merania, Dalmatia, Istria and Croatia – all the way to the Adriatic Sea. Because the winters were warmer there, the Wittelsbach dynasty, already infamous from chapter 3, became envious, destroyed the castle in 1246 and snatched the possessions.

If someone had not put the Alps in between, one could still see Rijeka, this year’s European Capital of Culture, from the monastery garden.

It was not until 1455 that Andechs became a Benedictine monastery, though soon a very enterprising one, with a brewery, beer garden and 100,000 bratwurst pilgrims per year.

The Thirty Years War and secularization dampened the influx and profit a little. Even today, the monastery complex still looks oversized. Some of the buildings stand empty, sad about the fact that people are less open to nonsense about Holy Thorn Wreaths. The beer garden, which I had been dreaming about for hours, is closed. On the events calendar for the year 2020, there are little sticky notes: “Postponed!” and “Cancelled!”

Oh yes, some people come here for the church. I myself am more on the side of secularization than that of the church, but I have heard that there are Christians among the readership. Hence a few photos of the house with the Holy Tower.

Because I don’t know anything about it, I won’t tell you about frescoes and rococo and high altars. (A sigh of relief from the readers. – But I have not forgotten that I must tell you about secularization at a suitable occasion!)

I am more interested in the pilgrim tablets that earlier hikers brought with them. This corner in the church is a visual guest book, so to speak. And, as is the case with guests, nobody comes without ulterior motives. They want to be cured of diseases. They want to bring in a fat harvest. They want to know the lottery numbers in advance.

But the guests are getting more and more stingy and/or impatient. Nobody paints wooden tablets anymore. The pilgrims of the 20th century have brought a few cheap wooden crosses, which hang behind the church.

In the entrance of the church I notice something else.

All over the world there is a debate raging about monuments that are no longer up to date. Statues are toppled, street names are changed, and people claim to be infringed in their fundamental rights when they learn that “gypsy” is not a cool word.

And who will muddle through again? The church. As always. As with the looted art from chapter 23, the churches simply keep quiet and hope that the debate will pass them by. Let the museums apologize or restitute, the church keeps its sticky fingers on the stolen stuff. (Well, if all their pieces of the alleged cross of Jesus were brought back to Jerusalem, one would quickly realize that all the splinters of wood are enough for a hundred crosses, and the charlatanism would be exposed.)

Here, on a war memorial, there is actually still something written about “heroic death” and “firmly faithful to the death”, apparently a Christian martyr cult. If something like that were written in a mosque, the anti-terrorism unit would have been there long ago.

Admittedly, that’s from after World War I, but does that mean you have to leave it there forever, without any comments? I also find it interesting that it mentions “the dear comrades who, as brave Bavarians, protected the honor and existence of the German name”. I don’t know how I could have failed to mention Bavaria’s role in the German wars of the 19th and 20th centuries so far.

But before that, things are becoming even more disturbing in this church of historical revisionists. Let’s jump to the Second World War: “We thank the Lord for visible help in enemy territory”, it says, dated 1943.

I see. So the Christian God was on the side of the Wehrmacht and helped in the wars of aggression, massacres and deportations to concentration camps. Or what else should “visible help in enemy territory” mean? And if it is the land of “the enemy”, why not just stay at home? The monks supposedly can brew beer, but reasoning is not their strength.

Let’s read what the monastery itself writes about this:

“The economically difficult 1920s, the Third Reich and the post-war period weighed heavily on Abbot Bonifaz Wöhrmüller (1919-1951).”

Oh yes, poor German Christians, they suffered so much in the 20th century!

“The economic enterprises had to be restructured, pilgrimage and pastoral care demanded efforts and attention. At the same time, the number of monks and employees decreased.”

Yes, yes, the economy! Just don’t think about or reflect on participation in the Holocaust, on complicity in anti-Semitism, on gains from Aryanization. Whining about fewer monks, but turning a blind eye to the concentration camp in Dachau with its 169 satellite camps, including some in this lovely landscape of Starnberg County.

But the monks simply had more important things to do at the time, one must understand that:

“Despite the Second World War, stucco and frescoes of the pilgrimage church were restored in 1941/42.”

Oh, how I long for a new wave of secularization!

While smoking a cigar in the monastery garden and reading, the two main reasons for my slow advance, I seem to look like a really poor pilgrim vagrant, because a family demonstratively but unobtrusively “forgets” two bananas on the bench opposite. This saves me from the usurious inns. Anyway,I feel little inclination to support the Benedictines so that they can pay hush money to victims of sexual abuse.

Descending from the monastery into the Kien Valley, I meet a real pilgrim for the first time. She is not planning to walk all the way to Spain, but I learn that the Munich St. James’ Way largely coincides with the King Ludwig Trail that I have been following, only skipping the profane castles at the end and turning towards Lindau instead. This is a lot further than my modest birthday hike, but she is smarter than me, because she only has a small backpack and has already finished her daily stage at 3 o’clock in the afternoon.

If I don’t find any Couchsurfing hosts for the next few days, I will be free of constraints and arrangements, really free as a vagabond, and I will probably slow down my pace as well. There are so many places where I could just sit for hours or fall asleep satisfied. The Kien Valley with its high beech trees that shield the sunlight but at the same time allow it to glisten in the lush green, and the eternally rushing stream in the deep gorge is one of these spots.

Herrsching may be quite pretty, but it takes all its pride and joy from a suburban train connection to Munich (practical for people who want to abandon the hike now because of political and ideological differences) as well as from its exact location on the 48th northern parallel, which puts the city on a level with Ulan Bator, Le Mans and Donetsk.

Oh yes, there is also a lake here. But this is Lake Ammer and more about that tomorrow.

As I stand on the outskirts of Herrsching in front of Mühlfeld Castle, wondering what it is, the sky darkens rapidly. (Later I will learn that the monks of Andechs used it as a summer, bathing and party castle. The difference between nobility and clergy wasn’t all that stark.)

So instead of walking the remaining 6 km, I stick my thumb out. Within less than a minute, a car stops. The young man doesn’t actually have to go to Aidenried, but he is so happy to see a hitchhiker that he insists on driving me there. He used to hitchhike to Innsbruck himself regularly because he had a girlfriend there, and meeting strangers was always great fun.

Reinhard, my Couchsurfing host, is not at home yet, so I deposit my backpack in the garden and go on an exploratory tour through the small village. After all, if he doesn’t show up, I have to find an alternative place to sleep.

In front of a farmhouse there is a luxurious sleeping swing, which would certainly be comfortable. But too close to the house.

Oh, over there is a chapel under a big tree.

And there is even a large bench under the tree. Perfect.

But at this very moment, all the clouds open up. For a while, the canopy of leaves keeps me dry, but after a few minutes it is already leaking in a hundred places.

In a garden below the chapel, a woman hastily fetches shoes and clothes from outside to save them from the deluge. She sees me, I wave, and she shouts over that I should come down to the terrace to seek shelter. So nice! She even brings me a towel.

Thus I have been sitting on the terrace for quite a while, hoping that the awning will withstand the storm, when two little girls come around the corner and spot me.

“Hello,” I greet them in their own garden.

“Do you need anything?” one of them asks, kind and helpful.

“Oh, thank you,” I say, “your mother has already helped me so much by allowing me to wait out the rain here.”

“Oh, our mom already knows that you are here?”

So apparently, there are families who raise their children in such a way that when they see a stranger in their garden, they don’t get frightened, but instead offer to help. And thus, this farmers’ family from Aidenried not only saved me from soaking wetness, hypothermia and death that day, but also lifted my faith in humanity to a new level.

As the low-hanging and deep black clouds take a short break, I quickly run to Reinhard’s house, which is half construction site, half museum.

He already has two other guests, so I get the sofa in the living room. From here I have a wonderful view over Lake Ammer, directly into the sunset, if it wasn’t still grey and cloudy. Hundreds of books are lining the room. Here, I could refuel if I had already consumed all the literature I am carrying with me.

At the age of 78, Reinhard is the oldest Couchsurfing host I have ever stayed with. He was a urologist and in retirement he turned his other talent, which he had already discovered in his youth, into a profession. He went to India for training and to the marble quarries of Da Nang in Vietnam, learned new techniques, and since then the old man, wiry like Clint Eastwood, has been working marble, granite and quartzite into shivas, sphinxes and swans, the latter an order by King Ludwig ll for Hohenschwangau or Neuschwanstein, but never picked up.

Older hosts are great because they have a lot of life experience. When I tell him about Iran, he jumps up and gets an amulet from the dining room: “This is for Imam Ali, I brought it from Isfahan.” He went to Iran with a Volkswagen Bulli when it was still the Kingdom of Persia. Enthusiastically, he relives the journey, from the Swedish girls whom he picked up in Istanbul as they wanted to go to India, to the attempted robbery at the hostel, where the thieves had hidden under the beds and jumped out at night. In the end, the robbers and the robbed were laughing together about the unarmed and harmless attempt to transfer ownership of chattel.

When we somehow get to the subject of volcanoes, he jumps up again and fetches a cannonball sized lump from the balcony: “A lava ejection from Etna. I drove up to the crater rim by car to skim lava for geological-sculptural experiments”. For this purpose, he had a blacksmith make a special trowel with a several meter long handle, which was then taken from him by the Carabinieri at gunpoint, because the lava trade in Sicily seems to be in firm and corrupt hands.

We don’t always agree, neither politically nor about women, where the sculptor, who is mainly interested in shapes and in shaping, shines through, but we talk until late at night.

Before the hike, there came warnings of bears, cold, hunger and blisters from the caring community. But the most dangerous thing happens this evening, when I run into a glass door that was cleaned too perfectly.

Fortunately, there is a doctor in the house. “Non-dislocated nasal bone contusion,” Reinhard diagnoses and tells me not to sleep on my stomach or on my side for the next few weeks. After a few days, the pain actually went away and I am still wearing my nose unscathed like a boxer whose strength lies in defense.

Links:

Here you can find all articles about the King Ludwig Trail. The report about the next stage will be published next week. Just check in regularly or get an e-mail subscription to make sure that you won’t miss anything.
There are more reports about hikes from all over the world.
The second day of the hike cost an unbelievable 0 €, which proves that travelling does not have to be expensive. If you can invest a small part of the millions you saved into supporting this blog, you will receive my eternal gratitude and – even more important – more stories.

Posted in Germany, History, Photography, Travel | Tagged Andechs, Bavaria, Couchsurfing, hiking, hitchhiking, King Ludwig Trail, prison | 2 Comments

In the King’s Footsteps (Day 1) Lake Starnberg

Posted on 2020-09-05 by Andreas Moser

Zur deutschen Fassung dieses Berichts.

I step off the train in Starnberg, ready to walk the 5 km to Berg, the starting point of the King Ludwig Trail, defying the blistering sun and 30 degrees midday heat. Every year for my birthday, I am hiding from well-wishers, presents and telegrams, preferably far away and into nature. In July 2020, a virus is raging, making long journeys if not impossible, then at least impractical.

Thus I decided to explore a piece of Bavaria, my homeland. On the tracks of King Ludwig II, I am going to hike about 110 km from Lake Starnberg, south of Munich, to Füssen, the last town before the Alps. As always, with no or insufficient planning at best, but open for any surprise along the way.

If you have some free time, do come along!

In Starnberg, just as I step out of the station, there is already the first change of plan in the form of a ship in the harbor. In a few minutes, it will be sailing to Berg, so I have to decide right away. Well, even Patrick Leigh Fermor took the ship for the first leg of his European tour.

Anyway, this is not one of those hiking blogs where kilometers and calories are counted, where average speeds are calculated and where records are set. Here, it’s more about the sights to the left and right of the path. And whether you get there on foot, by bike, on the train, on the boat, by hitchhiking or in a hot-air balloon is irrelevant.

In the south I can already see the distant mountains that are my destination. It’s a tempting idea to simply stay on the ship all the way.

“Does this blast sound at every stop?” a woman asks, startled as the ship’s horn blows loudly as it sets off. Like most passengers, she has booked a ticket for the full round trip. I already have to leave the ship in Berg because the esteemed readers want to learn all about the Bavarian kings, especially about Ludwig II. In Berg, there is one of the castles that played a role in the life of Ludwig II – and an even more important role in his mythical death

Unfortunately, I cannot visit the castle, because it still belongs to the royal Wittelsbach family, who live there. No one opens the gate for me.

In Bavaria, the revolution of 1918 was rather half-hearted, which is why people who believe that they are something special still occupy castles that should have been nationalized long ago. Something similar happened at the level of the Reich: Because there was no proper expropriation back then, we are still facing legal disputes with the greedy Hohenzollern family.

From their use of Berg Castle, one can guess what kind of people the Wittelsbach dynasty, who had been ruling Bavaria undemocratically since 1180, are. They had the Bavarians slave away in mines to purchase a fleet of 35 ships, powered by rowing slaves, and gondolas for up to 2000 guests, with whom they celebrated decadent feasts on Lake Starnberg.

And when the drinking and lakefaring binges with fireworks and firewater had become too boring for them, they went hunting. Not regular hunting, but driving the deer and stags into the water and shooting them there. Not very likeable people, as you can tell.

Into the same water, on the same spot, they also drove Ludwig II, who spent his last sad days at Berg Castle. (And shot him, too?)

A cross in the lake marks the spot where the body of the king was found on 13 June 13 1886. Inadequately dressed girls on a small boat are commemorating his majesty and are destroying the gravity of the place and of my photo.

13 June MDCCCLXXXVI, the date of death is written on a column in front of the supposedly Byzantine-Romanesque votive chapel, and some sightseers are trying to decipher it.

“1776,” someone says.

“But the king lived eighteen hundred something,” interjects a woman, “after all, he already had a telephone in his castle.” Someone then pulls this modern device out of his pocket, calculates a bit around and proudly announces 1886, the correct year. Delighted, they get back on their bikes.

I, on the other hand, already experience the first shock of the hike: A snake is gliding down from the steps of the votive chapel. Not some normal snake, but one that is dark black and enormous. The kind of snake that can strangle a man.

And with that, one thing is clear: I will not sleep on the ground, but always look for a bench or a hunter’s tree stand.

In consistency with geography, I should now tell you about the end of Ludwig II, but since we haven’t even met him, I consider that a bit premature. Even spoiled kings should stay alive for a bit.

Also in consistency with geography, I have to move north, so I can’t afford the detour to the south, where we would see the Bismarck Tower. That an enormous tower honoring the Prussian Chancellor was erected in Bavaria is surprising enough. But placing this monument only a few kilometers from the place where King Ludwig II was so shamefully executed, that is bold. Because, what many don’t know, but will learn to their great shock in the course of this article, Bismarck was not innocent in the death of the Bavarian king. Indeed, it would be fair to say that the death of the fairy-tale king rests on Bismarck’s conscience almost as much as if he had drowned him himself.

The beaches in Starnberg are packed. These are probably the millions of Munich residents who cannot fly on vacation now. There is traffic like in downtown Munich. And on the hiking trails, you have to be careful of cyclists. Especially if you stop to chat with other walkers, the power-cyclists who are interrupted in their endurance training sometimes make their discontent clearly audible and visible.

One could escape to the Museum of Lake Starnberg, which I had planned to do anyway, because a fellow student from my history degree works here. But, and this will be the common thread on this hike, I have been walking too slowly, arriving in Starnberg after 5 pm. Unfortunately, I have to leave early the next morning and will therefore miss the museum, but this does not prevent me from recommending it to you as a non-swimming option for your visit to the lake.

Starnberg is a town of millionaires. Drug smugglers, real estate speculators and the King of Thailand, who feels comfortable in the tradition of the Bavarian monarchs, are living here. He was probably the one who brought the king cobra that so frightened me earlier.

Speaking of rulers who don’t live in their own country because they know that they are not that popular: Did you know that Ludwig II, who shaped the image of Bavaria like no other monarch, actually wanted to emigrate and only stayed in Bavaria because he couldn’t get a visa? But more about that in a later part of this saga. Stay tuned!

In front of the houses, there are Porsches and sailing yachts. The boys are talking about whether they would rather have the Maserati Quattroporte or a mansion on Formentera as a birthday present. (I gave myself this one-week hike for my birthday.) The girls are discussing whether a dentist or a plastic surgeon is the better groom.

Life expectancy in Starnberg is 4 to 5 years higher than in the rest of the country. Poverty is one of the major risks of ill health, even in our rich country. If you take a closer look over the next few days, you will be able to guess a few reasons why this is the case.

But today, I am lucky. A couple whom I know nothing about have invited me to spend the night at their house in Starnberg. I have a dark premonition that they are some millionaire snots, where the servant serves dinner and the koi are fed with caviar.

As I am sitting by the lake, an elderly couple asks me for directions to the harbor. I may be new to town, but I already know my way around.

“Oh, that’s easy: You follow the promenade along the shore, and after maybe 300 meters you will see wooden jetties on the left where the ships dock. If you’re lucky, there’s one right now.”

“Thank you.”

“The first stop of the ship is in Berg, that’s the place where King Ludwig II died. But you have to walk a little bit south from the port, first through the village and then through a nice park, actually more of a forest, until you come either to a chapel or to the cross in the lake. This marks the place where Ludwig II died on 13 June 13 1886”.

“Oh”, says the woman.

“Did he drown?” asks the man.

“That is the question,” I admit. “It is a bit suspicious. Because the king was not alone at the time of his death. His psychiatric consultant Dr. Gudden was with him. And both were found dead.”

“Oh”, says the woman.

“Who is going swimming with his psychiatrist?” asks the skeptical man.

“Not swimming. They went for a walk. I know this all sounds dubious, but it gets even more confusing when I tell you that Ludwig II was not at Lake Starnberg voluntarily. He was abducted from Neuschwanstein on the order of the Bavarian government, which had previously incapacitated him. Section 11 of the Bavarian Constitution of 1818 did indeed give the Council of Ministers the right to take this step, similar to the 25th Amendment of the US Constitution, just that the Bavarian government had more balls than anyone in the Trump Administration. But there remain many unanswered questions, because most of the files have been destroyed or are hidden away in a secret archive”.

“Oh”, says the woman.

The man looks at his watch nervously.

The ship’s horn sounds.

“Oh”, I say.

Not only because the couple missed the last ship for today due to my excessive explanations, but because I accidentally anticipated parts of the story that I actually wanted to tell you later. But whether it was murder or suicide will only be resolved over the next few days.

Maisinger Canyon is a somewhat pompous name for a valley crossed by a small stream. But it is beautiful.

Apparently there is something military on both sides of the gorge, but seemingly nothing really important military, if such a thing exists at all. The signs do not say “no trespassing”, but merely suggest that the hiker should be careful when wandering into the line of fire.

In contrast, the rules that the authoritarian children from the Anti-Montessori School have put up are much stricter: No peeing, no pooping, no littering.

“Are you a pilgrim?”

“An Atheist Pilgrim.”

Just outside of Söcking, the retreating glaciers have left behind a hill with a single tree. A wonderful vantage point with a view of the Alps. A young couple is sitting on the only bench. The girl is reading a book to her boyfriend.

I don’t want to disturb them and sit down in the meadow far away (the snakes won’t climb that high, I hope), so that unfortunately, I can’t find out which work connects the youthful happiness. It’s a pity, because this recognition would probably mean more to the author than dull sales figures or a fabricated spot on the bestseller list.

Before me are the Alps, behind me the equally high cumulonimbus clouds. The place is beautiful, but probably too exposed to sleep.

That is why I move on to my nightly quarters with Yasmin and Basti, who are an absolutely positive surprise. There is homemade pizza, beer from the bottle and a lot of stories. Funnily enough, Yasmin was also worried all day about who would arrive in the evening: “Every time an unwashed hippie in a cloud of marijuana fog walked by the office, I thought: Oh dear, hopefully that’s not Andreas!”

The two of them immediately make me feel at home. They are the kind of people who stop for every hitchhiker, who are happy about these spontaneous encounters, who want to do Couchsurfing in Iran soon and who can get by for weeks with a small backpack. I am feeling a bit uncool with my large backpack, full of books.

Outside, the thunderstorm flashes, and I’m glad to have found a place to stay for the night. The exposed spot under the single tree would provide a meteorological and electrostatic spectacle, but it would also soak me completely wet, maybe even ignite me.

For tomorrow night, near Lake Ammer, I have already found another host through Couchsurfing, but the nights thereafter are still without accommodation. That might become uncomfortable. In view of the thundering storm, I should probably worry about that, but I am so exhausted that I fall asleep immediately after going to bed.

Links:

Here you can find all articles about the King Ludwig Trail. The report about the next stage will be published next week. Just check in regularly or get an e-mail subscription to make sure that you won’t miss anything.
There are more reports about hikes from all over the world.
The timetable for the ships on Lake Starnberg.
Lake Starnberg Museum.
The first day of the hike cost 25 € for the train ticket to Starnberg and 3.70 € for the ship to Berg. This was made possible by donations from readers, who were rewarded with a postcard. I would be happy to count you among the supporters of this blog for the next hike.

Posted in Germany, History, Photography, Travel | Tagged Bavaria, Couchsurfing, hiking, King Ludwig Trail, Starnberg | 4 Comments

The Iron Curtain and Freedom of Travel

Posted on 2020-08-28 by Andreas Moser

When I was in Transnistria, I had to go to the immigration office to obtain a tourism permit that would allow me to stay in the country beyond the 48-hour visa that I had picked up at the train station. The father of the hostel owner offered to accompany me to translate, should it become necessary.

He was very kind and interesting, and while we were waiting for my application to be processed, he was talking about his life as a radio technician in the USSR.

He told me that he used to travel a lot when he was young.

I asked him, very naively, if he had been traveling more since the fall of the Iron Curtain.

“But that’s not possible anymore,” he sighed. “Back in Soviet times, oh yes, I was traveling to Lithuania, to Estonia, to Armenia, to the Caspian Sea, to Georgia, to the Baltic Sea, to Kyrgyzstan, to Samarkand. But now, I need a visa for each of these countries, there are new borders everywhere.”

I was humbled. For me, the geo-politcal changes of 1989-1991 had opened up another world. But for many others, it had made their world smaller. With a Transnistrian passport, he can’t venture very far.

It had also made their world more brutal, in many places. And the war in Transnistria was not even a very bad one, as wars go.

Yugoslavia is another example, where people could not only travel freely in what are now seven different countries, but because of the non-aligned status, it was easy to travel almost anywhere in the world with the Yugoslav passport. There, the wars were very bad, though.

That day in Tiraspol, I began to understand people’s nostalgia for a country that in the West was only associated with oppression. Ever since, I have been more open to listen to people’s stories who are so different from mine. There are many reasons beyond the ones mentioned here why people long back to Soviet or Yugoslav times. Yes, these were dictatorships, but it seems that many people remember the time as cozier, more cultured, more egalitarian, safer. If you are interested in understanding this sentiment, there is a wonderful book by Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich, Second-Hand Time, a book which certainly does not shy away from portraying the horrors of the Soviet system. But nothing is just black or white, as these heart-wrenching stories reveal.

By the way, I got the Transnistrian permit for staying in the country after waiting a mere 10 minutes. And it came free of charge.

Links:

More about Transnistria.
And more about the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and the Cold War.

Posted in Cold War, History, Transnistria, Travel | Tagged Soviet Union, Tiraspol, Yugoslavia | 14 Comments

The Happy Hermit

In the King’s Footsteps (Day 6) Walden

In the King’s Footsteps (Day 5) Ammer Gorge

Why is German reunification celebrated on 3 October?

For my Chinese readers

In the King’s Footsteps (Day 4) The Longest Day

In the King’s Footsteps (Day 3) Lake Ammer

Hiiumaa, the real Adventure Island

In the King’s Footsteps (Day 2) Andechs Abbey

In the King’s Footsteps (Day 1) Lake Starnberg

The Iron Curtain and Freedom of Travel

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