It was a gorgeous day for walking. It was sunny but cool, and we were walking through the gentle rolling country of the foothills of the Rhön Mountains - a group of low mountains in central Germany.
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| Our host family's pet rabbit watched us as we set off for the day. |
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| Walking out of Rannungen. |
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There are so many of these crucifixes along the way.
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| A small grotto shrine with glowing candles - possibly gas candles? |
Most of today's walk was on sealed cycle paths or on roads so we decided to follow another walking path for a while - it took us up through farmland.
Pastal de Nata were my favourite sweet treat when we were in Portugal, pain aux raisin in France and Tarte de Manzana in Spain. It was taken me a while but, at this stage anyway, I have decided that Apfel-Blätterteigrolle - apple puff pastry roll - is my go to here in Germany. Nothing fancy but tasty all the same.
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| The café's toilet sign. Einfach erleichert - Simply relieved. |
While we were in the café a man started talking to us so I explained that we don't speak German. He quickly changed to limited English, telling us that he visits a daughter in the States from time to time and learns a little more English each time.
He asked where we were from and what we were doing. He was amazed that we were from New Zealand, and astounded about how far we had walked. His reaction is the same as many people who we have spoken to along our way. Not many people have met New Zealanders before, and not many have heard of the Via Romea Germanica. When people do realise that we're walking a pilgrimage they automatically presume that we're walking the Jakobsweg to Santiago and a couple of times recently we've been wished Buen camino! An understandable mistake as we have Camino patches in our packs ...but we've also got Via Romea Germanica badges on our packs plus mine has a VRG flag as well.
Flowers in Hambach:
And flowers along the pathways:
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| Granny bonnets grow everywhere in the wild. |
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| And peony grow as wildflowers too. |
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A roadside rose bush.
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I am wondering if the many crucifixes we are seeing have been erected by families rather than a church community. This one had an inscription on the base for a person who died in April 1914.
The crucifixes are well cared for with many having fresh flowers at their base.
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Finally walking into Schweinfurt.
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We walked through a large cemetery on our way to our accommodation. In most German cemeteries the graves are among hedgings and shrubs and trees and most have fresh flowers. I don't think we've seen any plastic flowers.
We walked to the Tourist Information Centre to have our passports stamped, and to ask about Mass for tomorrow. It seems that there are very few Masses. We were told that they this weekend Masses are in outlying churches.
From our walk into and around central Schweinfurt we have found that it to be quite charmless. This may be because Schweinfurt was heavily bombed during WW2 with most of city being destroyed. It was especially targeted because of it's 5 ball bearing plants.
It's a shame it's not as lovely as many other towns we've been to as we're having a rest day here tomorrow.
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| The Schweinfurt Rathaus. |
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| Scheinfurt's Marktplatz |
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| The Marktplatz. |
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| We had hot chocolates in the Marktplatz. |
Schweinfurt is a Landkreis (district) in the northwestern part of Bavaria, Germany. Neighboring districts are (from the north clockwise) Bad Kissingen, Rhön-Grabfeld, Haßberge, Bamberg, Kitzingen, Würzburg and Main-Spessart. The district-free city Schweinfurt is surrounded by the district.
Population 51,962
Source: Wikipedia
