Munich to Venice - what's the Traumpfad route like?

There is more to the Traumpfad than a north-south traverse of the Alps, but the mountains cannot help but dominate the experience.

The Hintertux Glacier in the Zillertal Alps

The whole trip will take most walkers 30 days to complete and it only takes two and half, walking alongside the River Isar, to get from Munich to the mountains. You are then in the Alps for the next 20 consecutive days (depending on the choices you make about how you stage your journey). When you emerge you follow the River Piave and it takes another five days of flat walking to get to Venice.

The Traumpfad - Munich to Venice

Introducing the first English Language Guide to Munich to Venice

­­­­If yo­­­u ask a German hiker how to get to Venice the chances are they would tell you to go to Munich, find the Marienplatz, then head south across the Alps on Der Traumpfad (the Dream Way).  Thirty days later after the trip of a lifetime, you’ll have swapped the crowds of Munich’s busiest square for what Napoleon described as the ‘drawing room of Europe’, the Piazza San Marco. 

On the ferry approaching the Piazza San Marco

Der Traumpfad has the same must-do status for German walkers that the coast-to-coast has for the British. Each year hundreds of people take up the challenge and set off from Munich on a trans-alpine adventure.

New Zealanders on the GR1

A Guest Blog from Rob and Debby McColl

A GR1 adventure 28 April – 17 June 2016

We surprised ourselves in 2012 by completing the 3000km Te Araroa Trail from top to bottom of New Zealand just a few months before Rob turned 70 and Debby turned 60! Everyone kept asking us what’s next, so we felt obliged to keep going.

Rob and Debby

Trekking in the Dolpo - September/October 2016

Some plans go better than others. We had a great trek in the Dolpo, enjoyed it immensely, but got home with the distinct feeling that it could have been even better. There are definitely lessons to be learned although I'm starting to that I'm getting to the stage in my trekking career when lessons have diminishing returns!

Phoksundo Lake

Trekking in the Dolpo - back in Kathmandu

After camping in Jumla last night, the last one under canvas, we're now back in Kathmandu and getting ready for our flight home tomorrow. To be honest after the delay to the start of the trip, the horrible extended stay in Nepalgunj, it's a relief to be here. The weather last night wasn't good and we really thought that flights this morning were going to be delayed. It was all very stressful but in the end the flights went without a hitch and after leaving Jumla at 8 we were back in Kathmandu in time for lunch.

Trekking in the Dolpo - Dunai

Today was our last proper trekking day, a day blessed with great weather and a heroic goat.

It was really hot and again the route seemed a lot longer than our memory suggested.

An hour or so from the campsite there were prayer flags on the path. BB told us they marked the spot where, a few weeks earlier, Thinlen Lhonlup, the star of Eric Valli's film 'Himalaya' had died. He had fallen with his horse into the ravine below and had died in a helicopter on way back to Kathmandu. Thinlen was a huge Nepalese figure and BB, who with Summit Trekking had worked on the film, was clearly moved to be at the spot where his hero had died.

Trekking in the Dolpo - south of Rechi

The plan is to get down the valley, almost all the way to Juphal, in two days. After the 2 day delay in Nepalgunj, BB wants to get Juphal in good time for the return flight to Kathmandu as we only have 1 day there before catching our return flight to London. This feels right although hanging around in Juphal for half a day won't make the next day's flight any more reliable.

We were slightly disturbed last night by a bongo bashing group of American doctors who were camping on the side of the lake. There was a huge crowd of them, at least 30, and they are on a tour of the Dolpo dispensing medicine. They certainly enjoyed themselves, staring up at the Milky War, watching the sparks from campfire join the stars in the sky and endlessly singing/chanting a limited repertoire of Beatles songs. As I've said before, lying in a tent listening to other people enjoying themselves is not much fun.