Via Romea Germanica Day 55: Garmisch-Partenkirchen - Mittenwald

Nun ging mir eine neue Welt auf. Ich näherte mich den Gebirgen, die sich nach und nach entwickelten.

(As the mountains slowly drew nearer, a new world opened before me.)

- Goethe, Italian Journey, written in Mittenwald (7 September 1786)

Fresco on a house in Mittenwald commemorating Goethe's passage through the town

Last day in Germany! I feel sad to leave, after spending 55 days walking across the country from north to south, from Stade at the mouth of the Elbe river to the Alps: 44 days last year, and another eleven days this year. 

Our guesthouse rooms in Garmisch did not come with breakfast, but they did come with a bus pass. So we breakfasted at the bakery around the corner and then took a bus one and a half kilometres back to the historic Ludwigsstrasse in the old town of Partenkirchen, where we had left the trail the evening before.

The trail climbed to the top of the town and out into the pastures above. We walked through the fields with the cows, and sometimes the cows walked on the trail with us!

The path joined a cycling route parallel to a major road, where we detoured 150 metres off-route to a café and restaurant that was perfect for us because the waitress spoke German, English, Spanish and Italian! The family that runs Gästehaus Brandnerhof is German, but the mother was born in Argentina, of an Italian grandmother! So the restaurant offers an "international menu", and we listened to Italian music and ate Argentinian empanadas with our German Apfelschorle, and Rossana chatted away with the restaurant owners in Spanish.

We then followed the bicycle path by the road to Klais, where we sat on the grass in the children's playground to eat our sandwiches and take another break; we had been walking gradually but steadily uphill since the café, always in the sunshine. Temperatures climbed above 30 degrees, making for hot walking on the asphalt cycling path.

Continuing out of the village of Klais, we were delighted to find ourselves on a stretch of original Roman road! Here the Romans had not needed to use paving stones; they just carved the road right into the bedrock, complete with cart tracks. Here in the woods is a portion of the Roman Via Raetia, connecting Augsburg with Verona and thus with Rome; it is the original road on which the medieval pilgrimage route to Rome is based, the road travelled by Goethe in his coach in September 1786, on the voyage recorded in his Italienische Reise, Italian Journey. 

The stretch of Roman road was only brief, and soon turned into a gravel road and then another cycling path winding uphill through spectacular Alpine scenery. 

Again it was hot walking under the sun on the asphalt path, and I was dreaming of the ice cream that awaited me at the end of the day when, over the crest of the hill in the midst of the Alpine pastures, appeared the incongruous sight of a man eating an ice cream cone! When I reached the top of the hill I was delighted to find Goas Alm, a goat farm with a café that sells not only goat's milk ice cream and cheese but cold beer and shandies - Radler in German - at only €3.30 for a half litre!

We departed much refreshed, and with a goat farm stamp on our pilgrim passports! Following the road/cycling route downhill, we soon found ourselves looking down over the town of Mittenwald, last town in Germany, our destination for the evening. 

We crossed the railway and walked through the town, famous for its painted buildings. Our accommodation was at the far end of the town, in a modern apartment building constructed for holiday rentals; we had a one-bedroom apartment with a sofa bed in the living room, a garden terrace, two bathrooms and a very functional kitchen. As soon as we had picked up the key and worked out how to get in, everyone pretty much collapsed, so I took over the bathroom with the tub and had a quick soak before heading over to the supermarket to buy ingredients for a spaghetti dinner. 

Garmisch-Partenkirchen - Mittenwald 26 km