We had a fun start to our day. As we have done other mornings, we went to the bakery in Feuchtwangen to buy lunch things and the young woman who served us was delighted to learn that we are New Zealanders. She said she watches Border Control all the time. She said she would love to visit NZ but also said she would worry if she inadvertently had something that wasn't allowed in NZ. She was such a character and had us really laughing. After buying our lunch and snacks she then said she would give us some things for us to eat along the way. We eventually left the bakery weighted down with too much food.
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| The bakery in Feuchtwangen. |
That fun encounter set the tone for the day, and we enjoyed everything in spite of the road sections.
Before leaving Feuchtwangen we visited the two Lutheran churches in the town centre, stamping our passports at one of them.
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| St Johanniskirche - the smaller of the two churches. |
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| St Johanniskirche |
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The Stiftskirche, the Collegiate Church, where we stamped our passports.
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We walked out of Feuchtwangen through a wetlands area and were serenaded by frogs, or possibly toads.
We didn't have any major towns on today's route, just a few small settlements and a couple of wooded sections.
Not far out of Feuchtwangen we walked past and old millhouse which dates back to 1379.
The houses in the settlements have such good gardens - vegetable as well as flower gardens.
The countryside looked very familiar to us and we realised that it could have been anywhere in the Waikato.
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| Beautiful blackberry flowers. |
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| We came across a couple of these Via Romea Germanica stones. |
When we were walking through a wooded area we decided to stop for a break only we hadn't seen any seats so thought that the step on a wind turbine would be OK.
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| The Pizzaschnecken & the Spinatschneke we were given by the friendly woman at the bakery. |
Only about 2 metres on from there though there was a benchseat that would have been far more comfortable.
Parts of the wooded areas were quite overgrown.
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| Walking through stinging nettle that was more than waist high. |
It was fine all day but at times the clouds looked quite threatening. We kept our rain gear handy.
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| We did find a seat for our lunch break. |
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| Jeff had more firewood envy. |
It was a good walking day, not too long or strenuous, and not at all hot - plus my foot pain has lessened a lot. It didn't seem very long before we were walking into Dinkelsbühl.
Just before entering Dinkelsbühl through the old town wall we were stopped by a cyclist asking us if we were pilgrims. He chatted to us for quite a while, telling us that he had walked from Frankfurt to Santiago de Compostela, a distance of 2,000 kilometres.
As I was taking his photo a woman arrived. She obviously was the chap's wife so I asked if she was the dog's mother and if I could take a photo of the three of them together. She acted indignant at being called the dog's mother but then laughed and said that the last child in a family always has fur.
We walked into Dinkelsbühl through the Rothenburger Tor.
Some photos of Dinkelsbühl:
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| The Woenitz Gate, the oldest gate in Dinkelsbühl. |
There is a stork nest on the top of the Woenitz Gate and the Tourist Information Centre has a live webcam feed showing the activity in the nest. We were able to see 2 adult storks.
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| I bought a tube of a natural, non chemical, anti inflammatory cream at this pharmacy. |
After checking in at our accommodation and leaving our packs we went to Münster St Georg, St George Catholic Cathedral. It was built between 1448 and 1499.
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| Our home for tonight. |
Dinkelsbühl survived the two world wars without damage and is nowadays considered to have ‘one of the best preserved late medieval townscapes in Germany’. The town wall with ramparts and moats was constructed between 1380 and 1440.
Dinkelsbühl is a historic town in Central Franconia, a region of Germany that is now part of the state of Bavaria, in southern Germany. Dinkelsbühl is a former free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire. In local government terms, Dinkelsbühl lies near the western edge of the Landkreis (or local government district) of Ansbach, north of Aalen.
