Pilgrimage

[Drul Morbok]

Hi everyone,
I just wanted to share that I went on a Pilgrimage from Berlin to Stuttgart, following the Camino de Santiago...well, some of them, it's a net rather than one route.

I already started at 1. of September, I expect the way to total about 800 kilometers, which I hope to finish within one month.
The background is that I move back from Berlin to Stuttgart, and I wanted to experience the way between (as I did not when I moved from Stuttgart to Berlin).

It has been a quite interesting experience so far, and I'm looking forward to the more interesting landscape now, as far as I'm concerned.

Also I started taking pictures of old churches and castles...well, more churches, as castles tend to be more away from the route, while churches are a rather obvious choice to pass by close 

I won't promise too much, as I'm not experienced at taking photos and it's not my top priority, but I will contribute as much as I can to the Khoras site, hoping to find some pictures at some site descriptions.

So have a nice time,
Drul

[tanis]

Sounds nice. Especially the whole being-able-to-reasonably-travel-thing.

Even if they're not "useful" it'd be nice to see some pictures of an exotic locale. 

Best regards from Nightmare Land.

[David Roomes]

Sounds like a great trip. And beautiful too. I would love to see some photos of your pilgrimage. Have fun!

[Drul Morbok]

So far it's definitely a great experience, and experiencing surely beats knowing and imagining 


For example, it's one thing to know that the North of Germany is rather flat, the center is more hilly with average mountains, and the South features a high mountain range...or that socialism in the GDR has lead to agricultural cooperatives with huge fields (for German standards at least...the Southern agriculture I'm used to is more defined by distribution among heirs, leaving fields fragmented and earning them the nickname "towels")...

But that's totally different from walking on straight field paths between harvested grainfields for days, hoping for the next few square meters iof shadow cast by the rare hedge, reaching a road or passing a village every few kilometers...
And then reaching and following a river running between the gentlest slopes, walking in the shadows of trees lining the river, spotting the first vineyard and seeing the occasional castle or fortification on hills... turning away from the river, traversing the first hill (more for the beauty of the path than for necessity), then getting more and more ups and downs on the path following a small creek, with increasingly more up and less down...with the path suddenly leading from between fields and the edge of smaller deciduous forests into coniferous woodland, on side of the path going up in a steep slope, a real natural creek finding its way on the other side...than gaining altitude from 300 to 800 meters within a few hours, going down again the next day with beautiful views from lookouts in between...

All of it accompanied by the change of the menus of the restaurants I sometimes decide to afford, the different building styles, seeing one-street villages being replaced by nucleated villages...


I mean, I know some of the places I've been from earlier holidays, but reaching a mountain ridge by train and hiking up there is by far not the same as crossing said mountain range as part of a 1-month journey...and experiencing the difference is a great...uhm, experience, so I'm so glad I decided to take the trip.


Oh, and I also spend much time thinking about the fact that for me, an 800km trip is a, maybe once-in-a-lifetime, one-month project, and if on the journey I go to a supermarket to supply myself with fruits and vegetables, chances are that those products already travelled 10 times the distance of my whole journey...
But as for right now, today is a day off in Coburg, and walking in yesterday, I already saw fascinating buildings...I read Coburg has one of the largest and best preserved castle complexes in Germany, so I will go there now 

PS: Sometimes I got unsure about terminology, so I trusted some online resources for terms like "nucleated villages", so feel free to ask or correct if what I wrote seems strange or unclear!

[David Roomes]

Damn, that sounds like fun. You're making me miss Europe! I really regret that there are no castles here in the States. I love castles. I see as many as I can whenever I have the opportunity to go to Europe (which is pretty rare).

You see so much more when you are on foot and traveling. You get to soak up every detail of your surroundings with every step. It's the best way to travel.

Your mention of the "change in menus" reminded me of something. There's a great line in The Hobbit (the book) where Bilbo has been traveling for a little while with the dwarves and he starts to notice that as they travel, the people in the taverns "eat strange foods and sing strange songs" (or something like that).

[sid6.7]

awesome trip hope it turns out to be a great one for you....

[Drul Morbok]

Unfortunately my remaining Dropbox Space is (by far) not enough for all the pictures I'd like to share, but I can give a link to at least some of the pictures via PM or mail.
I started with pictures of buildings, I omitted landscape and just about any other thing that makes for a nice memory (but I realized my fairphone photos of landscape did not turn out well...might be a general smartphone (plus me) issue)...

Or does someone know an alternative to Dropbox? My recent filesharing experience ist very limited....

And concerning your "Hobbit" quote - well in my case, the farther I travelled, the more normal the food in taverns got