Day 48 Mönchsdeggingen to Donauwörth - 27 km. Total km: 802

We walked a pick and mix route today. We started out on the Via Romea Germanica, but only for a short way, then we walked a route Jeff mapped out last night, followed by a couple of cycling routes, and finished by walking into Donauwörth on the Via Romea. 

The official Via Romea route went through Harburg but we wanted to walk from Mönchsdeggingen directly to Donauwörth. Harburg is well worth visiting, especially it's Schloss, but it would have meant another day of walking. We have always said that we'll see what we see, and don't what we don't. We're happy with that decision as we can't see everything. 

Before we started our walking day though, we had breakfast in our pension. 

On the dining room wall: To the world you are just someone, to someone you are the world. 

Leaving our pension, we immediately started to climb, the path taking us above the village of Mönchsdeggingen and through the churchyard of a small church, St Georgkirche, then up again to St Martin Katholische Kloster.

Looking down on Mönchsdeggingen.

St Georgkirche.

The path into the grounds passed the back of the monastery - St Martin Katholische Kloster:

The monastery church, still in use and well cared for, is incredibly beautiful. 

I took these two photos are in the entrance foyer:

The main altar:

One of the many side altars:

A few photos of the ceiling, I couldn't photograph it all:

When we left the church a couple were working in the grounds, gardening and generally tidying up. They are very proud of their church and tried to explain to me that it was styled on, or is like, another church, but unfortunately their English and my German weren't good enough for me to understand where the other church is. 

Some history of the monastery:
The monastery, dedicated to St. Martin, was founded in the 10th/11th century by the Ottonian dynasty —ancestors of Emperor Henry II. Initially, it was a Benedictine monastery until 1138 , before being converted into a Benedictine monastery in 1142. The monastery, which burned down in 1512/13, was rebuilt under Abbot Alexander Hummel, and the pilgrimage church was later redesigned in the Baroque style.

The Benedictine monastery was dissolved in 1802 during secularization. Ownership of the monastery passed to the Princes of Oettingen-Wallerstein . The monks were allowed to remain until 1807. In 1950, the Congregation of the Missionaries of Mariannhill took over the monastery as a novitiate for prospective priests. For a time, the generalate of the order, which has been based in Rome since 1970, was also housed here . With the departure of the last confrere in 2009, the monastery was finally dissolved. The monastery church and cemetery became the property of a church foundation, which continues to operate both. The remaining monastery buildings were sold to an investor in 2017 for conversion into private residences.

Source: Wikipedia 

Looking back at the Kloster.

From there the climb continued, taking us up over the outer rim of the crater, and high into a forest. We walked through a beech forest for quite some time. 

Then we were out into cropping land.

This little plant was growing on a huge rock. 

Coming into a village called Mauren where we stopped for lunch. 

A perfect place to stop as it was in the shade.

And on we went. Jeff really had firewood envy when he saw this. 

We were very happy to to walk through a second area of forest as it was very hot by this time. 

A shelter and seating - we've not seen this before. 

A request or prayer to wanderers at the shelter area.

Some of our track was on overgrown pathways. 

Leaving the forests for the day we walked down into Wörnitzstein where we had another short break. 

Then we were on our final leg into Donauwörth  - another 6 kilometres or so.

Crossing the Wörnitz River.

There were several stork chicks in this nest.

A wee chapel high up on a rocky outcrop.

As always, the last few kilometres of the day seem to go on forever. 

Finally entering Donauwörth. 

Very hot and rather tired, we stopped at the first bar cum ice cream shop and sat outside under umbrella enjoying yogurt ice creams and alcohol-free beer. We've been enjoying different alcohol-free beers. 

Just a few photos of Donauwörth, we hope to be able to see more tomorrow morning. 

A side view of the Rathaus 

Donauwörth is a town and the capital of the Donau-Ries district in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany. It is said to have been founded by two fishermen where the rivers Danube (Donau) and Wörnitz meet. The city is part of the scenic route called "Romantische Straße" (Romantic Road).

Population 20,108

Source: Wikipedia