Via Romea Germanica Day 59: Innsbruck - Matrei am Brenner

Man muß sich darein resignieren wie ein Reisender, der über einen Berg muß; freilich, wäre der Berg nicht da, so wär der Weg viel bequemer und kürzer; er ist nun aber da, und man soll hinüber!

(One must submit, like a traveller who has to ascend a mountain: if the mountain was not there, the road would be both shorter and pleasanter; but there it is, and he must get over it.)

― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774)

Into the heart of the mountains today, with an elevation gain of around 850 metres!

At eight in the morning we entrusted Annette with a couple of grocery bags, some money, and the task of buying enough food for our dinner and breakfast the next morning and bringing it along on the bus. Then we set out on foot through the old city centre and out of Innsbruck through the 18th-century triumphant arch and along Ludwigsstrasse. 

Soon we were out of the city. We passed over the motorway and under another road, and then began to climb high above the city, with views of Innsbruck far below. 

We turned off the road and onto a gravel road through the forest, which became a narrow path, still climbing, before joining another dirt road.

We emerged into the village of Vill, where we bought farm-fresh cheese from a vending machine, and then came to a larger village with the cute name Igls, where we stopped for a midmorning snack on the benches outside the supermarket. This is where a strong wind began to blow from the south, and once we were out of the town and in the fields, the wind was so strong it almost blew us away!

We stopped at the church in Patsch to sit down for a moment out of the wind, and found a stamp for our pilgrim credentials. Then we continued across more wheatfields, still walking into a strong headwind. Entering the forest finally provided shelter and relief.

It was while sitting on a bench in the woods eating our sandwiches that we encountered our first pilgrim! The first pilgrim I have met anywhere on the Via Romea Germanica, in fact, other than Dagmar, who was only walking three stages over a weekend. A young Frenchman, he had set off from northern France to walk to Rome, and had already been walking for three months! I would have liked to ask him more questions, but he seemed in a hurry to get moving again, and didn't even tell us his name before disappearing into the forest.

We walked uphill beside the stream in the forest and emerged into the village of Elbögen beside a former mill on the stream.

After Elbögen we abandoned the official Via Romea Germanica route and followed a road on a lower level, which was less pleasant to walk but saved us a kilometre and a half and the trouble of climbing higher only to come down again to our accommodation. We are comfortably situated in a spacious two-bedroom holiday apartment on a farm in Gedeir, enjoying all the space after our one-room flat in the centre of Innsbruck!

Thirsty pilgrim meets small boy selling elderflower syrup drink

Innsbruck - Gedeir (near Matrei am Brenner) 22 km