Day 56 Garmisch-Partenkirchen to Mittenwald - 21 km. Total: 936

Today's walk was a bit of a mix. It started off with some not so pleasant sections and we later had some wow sections. 

Garmisch-Partenkirchen was very quiet when we set off.

Leaving the town's streets we had a long grind up a sealed road, taking us up about 300 metres. 

The wild flowers make a lovely show.

This took us to Kaltenbrunn, a small settlement with a guesthouse, a handful of other houses and a tiny chapel. 

The guesthouse in Kaltenbrunn. 

When we looked into the chapel we couldn't see anything but the phone camera showed the interior:

St Anthony pray for us.

Then after Kaltenbrunn it was just an uphill trudge mostly between rail lines and a very busy road, with cyclists racing by as well - very few cyclists wear helmets.

We stopped and sat on the side of a water trough for a little while as there were no seats at all on this section. The water trough was a carved out log.

We finally left the road and rail behind walking up an old Roman road which had been cut out of rock between 195 and 215 AD. It made for really rough walking. 

Then we were in farmland. 

There were dozens of tiny huts dotted in the farmland, quite close together. We don't know what they are used for, although we did see a few were filled with hay.

When we spotted a seat we had a bit of a break. Growing up Heidi was my favourite book and I felt like I was part of the story today. We saw the goats, had mountain peaks all around us and we sat and ate chunks of rustic bread with slabs of cheese just as Grandfather made for Heidi. 

Then we walked up and through Alpine pasture. It was magic. 

All around grass was being cut for hay.

On one of the hut walls: This is where my cow's salad bowl begins - and not your dog's toilet. 

It was very hot by this time and most of the walk was uphill so we were surprised and thrilled when we spotted a goat farm which had a café. We immediately dropped our packs and chose a table under an umbrella and ordered goats milk ice-creams and alcohol-free beers. We also got our pilgrim passports stamped there.

Refreshed, and somewhat rested, we carried on. 

It was incredibly hot, the sun too glarey for good photos.

We weren't that far from Mittenwald by now and we were walking downhill - very steeply downhill just before entering the town. 

Looking down on Mittenwald. 

Finally we were walking through the streets and went straight to the Tourist Information Centre to get our passports stamped. 

The Tourist Information Centre & Rathaus. 

The view from our room:

Mittenwald is a German municipality in the district of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in Bavaria. Mittenwald is located approximately 16 kilometres to the south-east of Garmisch-Partenkirchen. It is situated in the Valley of the river Isar, by the northern foothills of the Alps, on the route between the old banking and commercial centre of Augsburg, to the north, and Innsbruck to the south-east, beyond which is the Brenner Pass and the route to Lombardy, another region with a rich commercial past and present.

Population 7,247

Source: Wikipedia