8/8 – After a sumptuous breakfast of fresh hard rolls, cold cuts, many cheeses, large slabs of butter, soft boiled eggs and a variety of marmalades and honey, we were ready to start our hike.  Frau Kilgus encouraged us to make extra sandwiches to take on the trail, and even gave us bags to store them in.  What a sweet lady!  I usually lose weight while hiking, but I’m pretty sure this hike will be the exception.  

Germans love to hike and bike, and there are many routes we could have chosen through the Schwarzwald. We elected to follow the Jakobusweg (Way of St. James), as we had previously hiked the Camino de Santiago Frances (Way of St. James) across northern Spain in 2011, and the Caminho de Santiago Portugues, north through Portugal and into Spain in 2014.  There are Camino pilgrimage routes throughout Europe, all ending at the Cathedral of Santiago de Campostela in Spain. 

This time, we are not competing a Camino to the Cathedral, but just walking along its path for one week.  It will be good to follow the yellow and blue Sign of the Shell again.

Our trek today was advertised at about 10 miles, but was closer to 12 once we factored in the extra mileage to our Gastehaus. The terrain was pretty and fairly flat, for which I was grateful.  The weather was gorgeous.  Here is my favorite hiking sight:  the back of Jim.

Cows in the meadow.

A field of yellow flowers with the Black Forest beyond.

St. Jakob with a broken hat

We reached our next destination, the little town of Schenkenzell by mid-afternoon, and were able to do some laundry and hang it on the balcony in the sun.  No wifi here either  – definitely a trend…

The Gastehaus Muller had no attentive Frau – a teenager let us in, then took off, so there was no one to answer our questions.  Luckily, Google Maps on my phone showed us a place to eat, even though we weren’t crazy about walking another half hour after walking all day.  It turned out to be a nice Italian restaurant, so pasta carbonara was our evening fare.  Carbo loading for tomorrow’s hike!