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Walking along the Via Romea Germanica from Stade, near Hamburg, in Germany south through Austria and Italy to Rome.

Sunday 13 May 2018

The Lech – Prittriching, Landsberg am Lech, Peiting – Day 43, 44, & 45 on the path.

The Lech is one of my favourite rivers.  I love it’s colour – a bright green near the Austrian border, but further north on its run to the Danube of which it is a tributary, it takes on a cloudier green colour.  In 2014 when I, and my sister in law – Joan, followed Jakobsweg from Munich we crossed the Lech several times the last time near Füssen.  It is here that I remember that bright green colour.  The Lech rises in the Austrian Alps at a height of 1,870 metres and is 255 kilometres in length.  I walked, more or less along its banks, upstream for a distance of about 40 kilometres and then saw it for the last time when I crossed it leaving Schongau.
Leaving Augsburg I had to cross the weir over the Lech to walk on the opposite bank


It was a delight following the river.  It was my companion for two full days, never very far away, flowing silently but swiftly onward to the Danube.  It is a very powerful river, with a number of weirs along the way, basically the only place that you can hear the river.  It flows so swiftly and fills the space from one bank to the next so that there are rarely any shallows along this stretch for it to make any noise.  Apparently, because it’s flow can sometimes be torrential, this is not a navigable river.

I met two blokes walking to Austria - but a different way to me.

      
There were a couple of lakes (man made) along the way, and one was used for water sport.  An ice-cream was consumed here!

      
As I said, the path was quite narrow at times, and I passed quite a bit of beaver activity.

Leaving Augsburg I had a choice of two paths, one following the cycling path which was often going through towns, along with a hard surface – which is bad for the feet and best to avoid if possible – or along the river.  This path is of course the one I chose – often very narrow, one person wide, and usually dirt and even soft grass at times.  It was a positive delight walking this way.  Plenty of opportunity to see the river, with bird song accompanying me the entire way.  I broke my journey on the way at a little pension, the only one in town, in the village of Pittriching.  My hosts spoke not a word of English and, my German being minimal, it made for an interesting night.  They were in their mid 80’s and the wife seemed to think it was her duty to sit with me while I consumed a bottle of water on arrival, and the next morning while I ate breakfast.  Not sure if she thought I would be lonely on my own, or if I was going to do something improper!
My pension in Pittriching
      

Arriving in Pittriching (left) and leaving (right) - heading back to the river bank.


My feet had stood up to the two days along the river quite well, but I decided it would be prudent to give them a rest and so in Bad Landsberg I decided to catch the bus to the next spot.  I used my extra time in the town to have a good look around, send some stuff home via the post, and purchase another VERY expensive bandage that the doctor had prescribed.  I also bought a mosquito net to put on my hat – partly for the mozzies that I am expecting to meet in Italy, but also for the funny little flying insects that hover around my face on very still days.  They are really annoying, getting in behind my glasses in particular.  Mind you since purchasing it I have had no need to use it.  This was the day that I saw my first view of the Alps, though not until a shower of rain cleared the air.
The weir at Landsberg am Lech.  Hopefully you can see how poerful this river is as the water thunders over the wier - wish you could hear it too. 

I can only assume that this part of the river has been diverted as a "mill stream".  It also thunders along and you can hear the buildings creaking as the water rushes past.

      
Landsberg am Lech

I was walking to my Pension in Asch when a woman stopped her bike next to me and fired questions at me about where I was going etc.  Then the questions started about my umbrella which I had to put up even though I only had about 2 kilometres to go.  Her husband does a lot of walking and she thought it was a wonderful idea.  With the word “wunderbar”, she turned her bike around and headed back the way I had come from.  She must have thought this was such a good idea that she gave chase to me to check it out.  My umbrella really is a talking point.
      
Looking towards Fuchstal in the early morning as I leave Asch (left), and the building works going on in Denklingen a few kilometres later.

The next day quite a bit of the walk was through forests.  I was getting towards the end of the day – about three quarters of the way there, when I met a group of men out for a walk.  The usual queries about what I was doing, and there comment about where I was headed for the night was “it’s not far”.  They added that the next village was having a party – “stop at the tent and have a beer”!  Five minutes later a young jogger stopped and repeated the barrage of questions.  Her response to my night’s destination was the opposite – “oh, you’ve got a fair way to go then”!  I merged both responses and decided that I had a reasonable distance but it would be manageable.
      
The boys I met on the forest path.  
I didnt have a beer, because as I passed through the village the tractors distracted me.  They must have been at a rally and were heading home.  I love the baby seat on the one below.

I had been looking forward to staying in the town of Schongau again.  Joan and I had stayed there when we walked from Munich in 2014, but the hotels were very expensive this time.  It was a public holiday (Ascension Day), and as it turned out there was a special event on in town which was probably the reason for it being so expensive.  Instead I planned to head onto the town of Peiting about 3 kilometres further on.  This meant that I would descend to cross the Lech for the last time before heading up the hill, first through a massive paper mill, then a beautiful forest, to the village.  As I was heading towards the descent to the Lech I passed through a group of people obviously waiting for something.  I of course made enquiries as to what they were waiting for and discovered that they were waiting for pilgrims to arrive from Kloster Andechs.  Joan and I had also stayed there in 2014.  I joined the waiting throng and sure enough about 50 pilgrims eventually came trudging up the hill, and presumably headed off to the church for a service.  I left town with a very long peal of bells ringing in my ears, reaching Peiting tired, but satisfied for a good day’s walk.
The pilgrims arriving in Shongau
Shongau
      
I nearly trod on this little Blindscheiche, a non venemous snake (left), and the church at Peiting (right)

1 comment:

  1. You're taking some nice shots, clearly thinking about the composition i'd say and it's showing. The great journey continues....

    ReplyDelete