Ich wandre ja so gerne am Rennsteig durch das Land, den Beutel auf dem Rücken, die Klampfe in der Hand
(I love to walk along the Rennsteig through the land, my knapsack on my back, my guitar in my hand)
- the Rennsteiglied, anthem of Thüringen
After breakfast with my new friends at Haus Rosengart, Sister Tanita showed me a shortcut to get onto the trail without going down into the centre of Friedrichroda. So I never actually saw the town centre, but walked through the park, past a big hotel and directly onto the road to Schmalkalden. After a short way along the road I turned onto a dirt logging road and climbed uphill to join the Rennsteig: a 170-kilometre long ridge walk running along a historical boundary in the Thuringian Forest, on the watershed between the Wese, Elbe and Rhine rivers. The path varies in elevation betwen 500 and 968 metres above sea level, and has been in use since the Middle Ages: it first appears in historical documents in 1330, as the Rynnestig.
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| The Rennsteig long-distance path |
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| Map of Thüringen Wald |
In the early Middle Ages, the lowlands were mostly marshy and impassable, forcing travellers to make arduous journeys across the mountains in order to travel on dry roads. These high roads only lost their importance following increased settlement and construction of permanent roads in the valleys. Another such "high road" crosses the Rennsteig, coming from Friedrichroda and heading in the direction of Mellrichstadt, in Bavaria.
Between the Second World War and the reunification of Germany, the Rennsteig could not be walked in its entirety, as the route repeatedly crosses what used to be the Inner German Border. Though not on the stage I walked today - I will not be back in what was formerly West Germany until I enter Bavaria, the day after tomorrow.
Along the Rennsteig, I climbed an observation tower with a fantastic view over the mountains, stopped at a viewpoint over a quarry, and took a break for lunch at Dreiherrenstein, at an elevation of 727 metres above sea level. Between 1572 and 1641 these stones marked the border between three districts: Hesse and the Saxon districts of Tenneberg and Georgenthal.
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| Spittergrund viewpoint |
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| Dreiherrenstein |
Shortly after this the Via Romea left the Rennsteig to follow a paved road downhill towards Schmalkalden.
The long, steep road took me down to the village of Floh, where the tourist information office was supposed to be open, but wasn't... while the pretty little gem of a church, all decorated in pale blue with fluffy white clouds on the ceiling and a Rococò pipe organ, was open, but had no pilgrim stamp, as far as I could see.
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| Coming down the hill to Floh |
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| Floh |
It was only a few kilometres from Floh along a cycling path to my destination for the day in Weidebrunn, just before Schmalkalden, where I am a guest in the home of Ingola and Andreas, who started hosting pilgrims after their son walked the Camino de Santiago. There are three families who host pilgrims in their homes in Schmalkalden, and there are not that many pilgrims who walk this route; Andreas and Ingola hosted a total of five last year.
We had our evening meal together in their beautiful back garden, watching the squirrels running about under the hazelnut tree. As with my hosts in Braunschweig, who were originally from Leipzig, I asked what it was like growing up in East Germany. When I was a child, we knew nothing about what life was like in the GDR, only that the country produced a lot of Olympic medal winning athletes! So when I talk to people who are around my own age I'm always curious to hear what their childhood and adolescence were like. Andreas told me about some of the good things, such as the fact that everyone had a job because there were plenty of industries, as everything was made within the country. There was no such thing as unemployment. People were friendlier than they are now, and not so obsessed with money. Education was good, books were cheap and widely available, and everyone had equal opportunities to participate in sports and in cultural activities such as going to the theatre, movies and concerts. On the other hand, it was practically impossible to travel outside of the country. The press and television were of course controlled by the state, and there was no freedom of religion: people who identified themselves as Evangelical Christians were prohibited from holding certain jobs, such as teaching. The streets were not as clean and pretty as they are now; buildings might be left unfinished, and no effort was made to preserve the area's historic half-timbered houses, many of which were torn down to make way for modern constructions.
If only we could learn a lesson from the past and keep some of the good things, while fixing the bad!
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| With Andreas and Ingola |
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| My attic bedroom |
Friedrichroda - Schmalkalden 20 km
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