Monday 18th July Unterjoch to Fussen

Big news today is that I met up with Roger and Sue, friends from London, and they're going to be walking with me for the next few days. They walked up from Fussen to Falkenstein and I met them there for lunch. Really great to see familiar faces.

I know it's not my fault but can't help feeling slightly guilty that I haven't been able to arrange better weather for them. Today was cold, damp, and of course the views were restricted. Outlook for the next few days is not brilliant.

Their arrival also means new shoes and socks, for the time being at least the smell of damp dogs has been banished.

After the climbs of the last three days today was a much easier walk. Turned out that my gasthof was about 15 minutes outside of Unterjoch so the day started with a short walk along the side of a stream to the village. Unterjoch by the way looks nice and has lots of places in it to stay; must be some sort of winter resort.


Unterjoch

After a gentle uphill climb to Scheidbachalpe, the route takes you down to a river which you follow through a valley all the way to Pfronten/Ried. A very easy walk and changing into and out of waterproofs was the only challenge.







Vils

Pfronten is a polycentric settlement and deciding which centre to choose was a challenge. After a couple of false starts I found the right one, found a sign with a map, and I was on the E4 up to Falkenstein. After such a gentle day the climb up to Falkenstein was savage, not helped by a phone call from Roger half way up when my phone buried deep in my waterproofs. Anyway meeting them in the restuarant at the top was a real reward.


Falkenstein

Nice walk down to Fussen mainly through trees. The border between Germany and Austria is very convoluted around here and we were constantly crossing from one country to the other and changing footpath signing systems as we did. Lovely lake just before we got to
Fussen.



With Sue


27 kilometre walk and a guess a climb of about of 600 metres but with more descent. Roger seems to think he walked about 26 kilometres up to Falkenstein and back (with 1500 metres of climb) but my guide (which I now have), says 20 - I think I'll keep quiet about this - don't want to discourage him.

Fussen is a picture postcard town and it's two fairy tale castles are a huge tourist attraction. Roger and Sue went round them yesterday and were not impressed with the crowd herding techniques. Good news as far as I'm concerned, have an excuse to give the tour a miss. Resting up today and then two nights in mountain huts.

2 comments:

  1. John. I trust you needed the company of your friends so much, so enjoy the pleasure of being in that beautiful Bavarian Alps.

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  2. Hello John,

    We are now back home, having folowed your trail across Switzerland, albeit a little more slowly. Must coness that we also thought that Konstanz was in Switzerland until we actually arrived!

    Once in Konstanz we decided that we didn't want to spend 2 days following the railway line round the Bodensee so we jumped on a ferry and enjoyed a pleasant cruise across the lake to Bregenz.

    Didn't come across that many long-distance walkers en-route through Switzerland although we did meet one chap who had just set off from Neuchatel to walk down to Tarifa and on to Cadiz.

    We are planning to set off from Bregenz again in the middle of August althogh probably on the Alpine Route although we will be reading your description of the sub-alpine route with much interest.

    Good luck with the last stages of your walk.

    Regards. David and Carole

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