On my way through Germany

My last hiking plans did not turn out at all as expected - and therefore I was a bit reluctant to publish my next plans, especially since I could not foresee how my body would fare with hiking after 6 week of reconvalescence.

But I am proud to say that I have already hiked 600 km now after my surgery with no problems!

So what is the plan? My doctors recommended easy hiking in Germany -always close to a hospital. And therefore I dug out an old plan: my hike from the Southernmost point in Europe to the Northernmost point, from Tarifa in Spain to the North Cape in Norway. I have already hiked from Germany to Tarifa in the winter 2013/14, but the second half from Germany to Norway was still missing. Of course the rest of the summer is not long enough to walk the whole distance of almost 5,000 km, but I decided to hike the missing part through Germany all the way up to Denmark.

Werner and I and the river Rhine

Like in 2013 when I hiked to Tarifa I started again at my friend Werner's place - but this time I was hiking North. Again I stayed one night with Werner and his wife - and again I was whining how bad everything is. In short: I was suffering from pre-trip depression again. It did not help that the night before my start date temperatures dropped down to 8 degrees Celsius. In the morning of August 11th Werner took me to Koblenz again where we had the obligatory start photo taken at the "Deutsches Eck". Then Werner accompanied me up to the fortress "Ehrenbreitstein". It was a first test for my physical condition - but huffing and puffing I kept up with Werner. After several more photos Werner finally sent me off on my way to Denmark. And I have happily been hiking ever since....

My planned route is about 1,000 km - I don't do anything shorter.... I have to be back in Berlin end of September and right now it looks that these five weeks is plenty of time. I have some speaker appointments in Germany and then I will be off hiking again in October in another place. But this is another post. I will keep you posted!