Monday, October 22nd - Volksmarch in St. Goar.
Bob: First thing after breakfast (a very nice standard German breakfast buffet), we signed up for the Permanente Wanderweg at our hotel and off we went. For this walk, however, there were neither written instructions nor a map; we had to very carefully follow some small wooden signs. As long as we kept our eyes carefully peeled for those, however, we could follow the route quite well. Maybe twice we found ourselves at a loss of where to go next, but in both cases, a short exploration down the possible streets or paths resolved the issue. From the starting point at the Hotel Lorelei Blick, we crossed the street and started walking downstream along the banks of the Rhein River. There are almost always boats passing either upstream or downstream through the narrow channel and it was fun to watch them chug slowly upriver or come charging downriver. We walked maybe a kilometer to St. Goar and turned left to walk uphill along the road leading to a big old castle. The walk route steadily zigzagged up the hill using roads and paths, and we were warmed up but out of breath by the time we reached the castle gates. A fair warning to folks thinking about this walk is that the steady climb up to the castle is at least 700 feet or so, and after that you continue climbing for at least another 300-500 feet, so the total elevation gain is considerable and really gets your heart pumping. |
Monika: I am always curious to see what the breakfast menu would look like. All along, we have gotten very good fresh rolls, a hard (or medium hard) boiled egg, a variety of meats and cheeses, and jams, honey, and of course Nutella. Usually there was also yogurt and cereal. All in all, it always made for an excellent breakfast, that kept us going to early afternoon even with a Volksmarch. I had picked the town of St. Goar since it had a 12K Permanente Wanderweg. It was billed as "Panoramic" and since the hotel was next to the Rhein, and the panoramic view would be from the top of the cliff, I could foresee some climbing. Indeed, we first climbed to the ruins of an old fortress, that was towering over the Rhein at St. Goar. We had seen it on our way in, and had been curious. |
Bob: The walk route brushes past the castle and continues uphill, but we took the opportunity to turn off for a bit and explore the ruins of the castle. The castle was built starting in 1245 and greatly expanded over the years. Until the advent of cannon the castle was a successful defensive fortification and greatly enriched its owners with tariffs from the Rhein shipping traffic below. But the advent of cannon made the owners continue to expand the fortifications, and even so the castle was taken several times after 1600, with the French finally blowing much of it to smithereens in 1794, after which it became a ruined relic of kingly power. We learned all this history, of course, in the castle's museum, which also had the most extensive collection of tin soldiers I have ever seen; they covered every epoch of the castle's history from the 12th Century onward. In all, we spent at least an hour and a half wandering around the remains of ramparts, dungeons, storage chambers, and all the other pieces that were still intact. |
Monika: So we stopped to take a look around. You could really walk all over and under the old fortress with beautiful views of the Rhein and the surrounding vineyards. So with picture taking and walking every path, we probably spent at least one and a half hours. |
Bob: From the castle we continued uphill and then turned South to walk basically along the crest of the ridge above the Rhein River. In the section near the Lorelei Rocks the Rhein has carved a rather large canyon with steep bluffs for walls. While walking on the ridge we almost always had beautiful views of either the German countryside on our right or the Rhein River valley with its picturesque towns and river traffic below on our left as well as some more castles and vineyards across the valley on the other side. We made one big detour inland that I think was necessary to work our way safely around a side valley with a little creek in it. In any case, that section of the trail was a wonderful walk in the woods that were still showing off their fall colors. We even ran across a herd of sheep and a herd of goats, and they seemed as curious about us as we were about them. But the track coming back down off the ridge was steep and often muddy or coated with slippery leaves, so we had to be very careful about our footing, and even so I twisted my ankle a couple of times. Note to other walkers: a layer of fresh acorns on top of sloped rocks acts just like a layer of ball bearings! |
Monika: . After that, the walk led us farther up, until we walked a nature path way above the Rhein. For this walk, we had neither map nor instructions. We had to follow wooden signs nailed onto the trees. Imagine, finding weathered wooden signs on weathered trees and you will be as amazed as we were, that we seemed not to have missed a single control point. At one point, there was a big sign saying "Selbstkontrolle" (controlpoint) and then a smaller sign saying in essence, the control point is no longer here, but look for it in the woods. (I thought I could hear some evil cackling in the back). All along the walk, we had beautiful views of the Rhein, the Lorelei cliff, and the three fortresses along here, the one on our side we had visited and two on the opposite side of the river. I was getting rather tired, when we finally started to descend. Once we got to the Landstrasse, we were only about 100 meters from the hotel where we started, although it seemed as if we had gone much farther upstream. |
Bob: Still, in the end we descended safely to the valley below, reached the main street on the West side of the river valley, and turned left to walk about a block back to our hotel, which was the finish point for the walk. People taking this walk should keep a close watch for the route arrows. Some of the wooden arrows had weathered and particularly when mounted against a tree trunk in the woods, they were rather difficult to spot. Similarly, we encountered steep downhill sections that were slippery even when dry and I think those sections of the trail would quickly become dangerous in the rain or snow. Still, the views we had all along this route were simply breathtaking and I would highly recommend this walk in clement weather. Except for the castle, there were no toilets or opportunities for food or water along the route, so remember to take some with and for heaven's sake take a camera because you really should record the marvelous views. Once back at our hotel, the young lady at the desk checked our start cards and stamped our books, after which we went up to our room to relax a bit before walking back down into St. Goar for a late lunch. After lunch we tried to find the Internet Cafe we had seen advertised, but it seemed to be out of business, so we just shopped a bit for rolls for our evening meal (and I found 5 CDs of German folksongs for 10 Euro!) and returned, very slowly and stiffly, to our room for the night. |
Monika: We had our books stamped, rested a bit in our room, and then went out to look for lunch. German restaurants always display their menu outside, so we could check whether there was something relatively low fat for Bob. One restaurant offered turkey breast on noodles with a salad. This sounded somewhat healthy and it did turn out to be quite good. I had Goulash with Sauerkraut and "Knoedel", not my favorite starch, but the Goulash and the Sauerkraut were really good. After buying rolls for the evening meal we headed home to collapse for the evening. |
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