Day 41 Rothenburg ob der Tauber to Schillingsfürst - 18 km. Total km: 677

We're going to take one day at a time. I was able to walk today, not pain-free, but I walked. Tomorrow we'll reassess. Each day I can walk is a gift, and today was gift in many ways.

We started the day well with breakfast at a bakery café before setting off, walking through Siebers Tower, the one in Jeff's puzzle, and on through Spitaltor, the Spital Tower, and Spital bastion. The Spital bastion is said to be one of the most impressive of the town's fortifications with two inner courtyards.

It's not often that we can start the day with a good breakfast. 

Out through Siebers Tower of Jeff's puzzle. 

Looking back to Siebers Tower. 

On through Spitaltor and bastion: 

Spital bastion. 

We walked through several villages today, all without services, and walked on a mix of tracks. Sealed roads and cycle tracks, gravel paths, and soft dirt tracks - some a bit muddy from recent rain. It was also a day of constamt hills. Not major but enough to make us puff.

A woman came out of her house as we were walking into Gebsettel, the first village of the day. She asked could she help ud and where we were going. We said we wanted to find the Catholic church, which we were very close to. Another woman came out and they both talked to us for a while before wishing us well. 

Nearly at Gebsettel.

St Laurentius Katholische Kirche in Gebsettel.

On the side of the church: Holy year 2025. Place of hope. 

Unfortunately the church was locked but we had a short break there. We're very impressed with the beautifully kept graves in the churchyards we're seeing on our walk, and that there are always watering cans near the tap. 

We've seen copper on many buildings - downpipes, gutters and roofs. The bridge in the photo below had copper cappings on the rails. They can't have copper thieves here in Germany!

These photos make it look like our route look flat but we'd already been up and down quite a lot by this stage.

So many places have great wood stacks. Jeff has firewood envy. 

At one stage we walked along what had been a rail line from 1905 until 1971. The old station is now a private house. Some of the railway paraphernalia still in place. 

The tower roof on this house is copper.

We had a morning tea stopp at the Lutheran church in Bockenfeld - it was also locked.

The church in Bockenfeld.

We're still walking through cropping areas, but the blocks are much smaller. 

What we really enjoyed today was walking through wooded areas, something we had a lot of in Thuringia but very little since we've been in Bavaria. 

We had a third stop at Faulenberg where we had lunch. We jad just sat down at a picnic table and seats in the shade of an old linden tree when a woman came out from a nearby house and asked us if we would like some water. She brought us some still water and some carbonated. She didn't talk long and went back to her gardening.

Our lunch spot in Faulenberg.

The old linden tree. 

The woman who gave us water.

The last part of today's walk was through a wooded area that had a small stream running through it. It was the best part of our walk with sound of the stream running over rocks, constant birdsong and something else quite magical. There were the most gorgeous big dragonflies we had ever seen flying about over the stream. They were a stunning turquoise colour and their wings were extra beautiful when they caught the sun. There was no way we could take photos of them, their movements were too quick, we just stood and watched them for a long time. 

Jeff cupping spring water. He said it was extremely cold.

We shared much of today's route with the Jerusalem Way. We'd have a long way to go if we were walking that route.

We also shared the route with foxes. There were so many fox signs for a great part of the walk.

Unfortunately we didn't see any in spite of Jeff looking for them.

 

Jeff on a fox hunt.

Finally we arrived at Schillingsfürst but it wasn't an easy entry. We seemed to have zigzagged out way around the town on incredibly steep roads and down narrow stairs only to have to go up again. 

Coming into Schillingsfürst we noticed signs for hedgehogs.

We made our way to the Tourist Information Centre to get our passports stamped. 

Waiting at the Tourist Information Centre. 

The woman at the Tourist Information Centre was busy when we arrived so we had a bit of a wait before going in. After she had stamped our passports I asked her about the hedgehog signs, as I noticed there were hedgehog stickers in the centre and notices with hedgehogs on them. She explained that years ago the poor of the village used eat hedgehogs now now there's an annual hedgehog festival. She also said that the village has its own secret language which they use at the festival. 

The woman at the Tourist Information Centre -she was lovely. 

Schillingsfürst - a village with many hills and gullies. 

Schillingsfürst is a town in the Ansbach district in Middle Franconia, seat of the Schillingsfürst administrative communityand part of the Nuremberg metropolitan region.

Population 2,805

Source: Wikipedia