Commercial overnight accomodation comes in all shapes and sizes. I guess it's clear to everybody reading this that we didn't use the four-star plus categories of business hotels.
I tried to find smaller places, B&Bs or traditional inns. As described above, I often tried to get the addresses through the internet sites of the respective towns, because they generally list all the existing accomodations. Commercial sites often only list those that pay for it. At some point, I came across a site that wanted me to pay a few Euros by credit card just for giving me internet or e-mail addresses that I could get for free elsewhere. Wether it was just an attempt to rip off or a phishing attempt, I don't know.
Two sites that helped me greatly were: www.visittrentino.it and bed-and-breakfast.it.
The good thing about these long-distance hikes is that even if the place isn't that great, you only have to stay one night. If the place is really, really nice, you can come back another time. This summer, we are going to stay in one place we discovered in our first year, taking along Mom's sister and her family:www.geratser-hof.de. It's just outside the Alps, with a private beach at a lake, many opportunities to hike, bike, do sightseeing and the mountains are close, too... looking forward to it!
Mittwoch, 18. Mai 2011
Mittwoch, 11. Mai 2011
Finding places to stay II: Huts and Hostels
Soon after the beginning of alpinism, enthusiasts built the first huts in which to stay before and after the ascent to the summits. Towns and villages were too far down in the valleys, and the alps were chosen to allow good grazing for the cattle and goats, not to allow good access to the summits. So the alpine clubs raised funds, bought ground and built the huts to provide food and shelter to alpinists.
To this day, many of the huts belong to chapters of the alpine clubs, named for the chapter they belong to. So you find the names of cities far away in the lowlands in the heart of the Alps. The Brunswick Hut, for instance, is a base camp for glacier tours close to Sölden, Tirol. The huts are run by professional gastronomers, with the help of volounteers.
The huts are open to everyone, but alpine club members get a discount on fees and some prices. Since it is the clubs that maintain and mark a large part of the trails, and provide a lot of information, it is advisable to become a member if you plan to spend more than just a few days in the Alps.
Outside the Alps, Youth Hostels are a good place to stay. They were founded a little more than a hundred years ago to provide food and shelter for travellers on foot, especially school groups and scout-like organizations. The goal was to provide a hostel every 30 km / 20 miles or so, but because foot travelling has declined, the network is thinner, depending on demand. Today, they're open to individual travellers and families, too. In most places, there's no age limit, just Bavaria accepts people over 26 only as guardians of minors.
To stay in the Youth hostel, you must be a member of a youth hostelling organization such as DJH (www.djh.de, click on the Union Jack to get the english version). In most cases, you can join directly at the hostel during check-in.
To this day, many of the huts belong to chapters of the alpine clubs, named for the chapter they belong to. So you find the names of cities far away in the lowlands in the heart of the Alps. The Brunswick Hut, for instance, is a base camp for glacier tours close to Sölden, Tirol. The huts are run by professional gastronomers, with the help of volounteers.
The huts are open to everyone, but alpine club members get a discount on fees and some prices. Since it is the clubs that maintain and mark a large part of the trails, and provide a lot of information, it is advisable to become a member if you plan to spend more than just a few days in the Alps.
Outside the Alps, Youth Hostels are a good place to stay. They were founded a little more than a hundred years ago to provide food and shelter for travellers on foot, especially school groups and scout-like organizations. The goal was to provide a hostel every 30 km / 20 miles or so, but because foot travelling has declined, the network is thinner, depending on demand. Today, they're open to individual travellers and families, too. In most places, there's no age limit, just Bavaria accepts people over 26 only as guardians of minors.
To stay in the Youth hostel, you must be a member of a youth hostelling organization such as DJH (www.djh.de, click on the Union Jack to get the english version). In most cases, you can join directly at the hostel during check-in.
Donnerstag, 5. Mai 2011
Finding Places to stay I: cloisters
Pilgrim who use "classical" routes can rely on infrastructure dedicated to them, such as pilgrim's hostels, and in the cities, towns and villages, hotels, B&Bs and the like are prepared for them.
For us, it was a different matter. I know one man who walked from his home near Würzburg all the way to Rome, always along the roads, and looked for places to stay every afternoon. It was difficult enough for him alone. For a family of four, this seemed too risky for me. After all, with our Sonny being only 9 years old when we began, and Daughty 11, we couldn't bring bedrolls and tent, because they could only carry their clothes and nightthings. Anyway, pitching up a tent just anywhere is not allowed in most of continental Europe.
So we used the information in maps and internet to find places to stay overnight. I had to adapt the route a few times, because not all small towns have inns with beds anymore. In the lush hills of the Allgäu, many farms offer guest appartments, but they generally don't rent them for just one night, and we preferred accomodations where dinner and breakfast could be had, so we needed to carry less provisions.
Valuable clues came from the maps, e.g., they showed where cloisters were. Two of them were still active, and as they often make a living these days by providing rooms and accomodation for timeouts or conferences, I mailed them to ask if they could accomodate us. Both were welcoming us. We had good encounters with the nuns living there and the other guests, like two young patres who were preparing a summer camp for youths.
In Bonlanden, we arrived late and drenched because it had been raining most of the day. We were first fed with their organic produce - a simple yet delicious meal - and then led over to what normally is the guest house for visiting priests. It's an Art Nouveau building still with its original furniture (not as ornate as in a secular builing, but beautifully crafted nonetheless) and modern kitchen and sanitation carefully fitted in. We were overwhelmed by that VIP treatment. The nect morning, we followed the sisters through their refectory and into the Church for Sunday Mass.
For us, it was a different matter. I know one man who walked from his home near Würzburg all the way to Rome, always along the roads, and looked for places to stay every afternoon. It was difficult enough for him alone. For a family of four, this seemed too risky for me. After all, with our Sonny being only 9 years old when we began, and Daughty 11, we couldn't bring bedrolls and tent, because they could only carry their clothes and nightthings. Anyway, pitching up a tent just anywhere is not allowed in most of continental Europe.
So we used the information in maps and internet to find places to stay overnight. I had to adapt the route a few times, because not all small towns have inns with beds anymore. In the lush hills of the Allgäu, many farms offer guest appartments, but they generally don't rent them for just one night, and we preferred accomodations where dinner and breakfast could be had, so we needed to carry less provisions.
Valuable clues came from the maps, e.g., they showed where cloisters were. Two of them were still active, and as they often make a living these days by providing rooms and accomodation for timeouts or conferences, I mailed them to ask if they could accomodate us. Both were welcoming us. We had good encounters with the nuns living there and the other guests, like two young patres who were preparing a summer camp for youths.
In Bonlanden, we arrived late and drenched because it had been raining most of the day. We were first fed with their organic produce - a simple yet delicious meal - and then led over to what normally is the guest house for visiting priests. It's an Art Nouveau building still with its original furniture (not as ornate as in a secular builing, but beautifully crafted nonetheless) and modern kitchen and sanitation carefully fitted in. We were overwhelmed by that VIP treatment. The nect morning, we followed the sisters through their refectory and into the Church for Sunday Mass.
Dienstag, 3. Mai 2011
Finding the way
Long live the Internet! Planning a trip like this would take such a lot more time without it, if it was even possible.
First, it's getting the relevant maps. For close to home, the local bookstore is a good address. But they don't have more information on places further away that are not common tourist destinations. The survey agency site mentioned in the last post has links to its sister organizations in many places of the world, that helps. But the Italians only sell to resellers. Luckily, I found someone on the internet who runs a one-man business specialized in this...
With the maps at hand, I set out to plan tracks and places to rest and to sleep. Tourist topographical maps often show restaurants and hotels that are outside towns. The websites of towns generally have links to these places, especially in tourist areas (and if you go by the town sites, you get all the places, not just those that payed to be shown on a touristic site).
To judge distances, I generally go by the old-fashioned string method: Take some sewing thread and lay it as closely as possible over the chosen track, marking the end. When you're done, measure the length against the scale marked on the map. This underestimates the length by app. 10%, but is a good first approach.
I don't generally use google maps because they know only roads suitable for vehicle use and open to the general traffic. These I want to avoid... but I occasionally check the satellite images to see if a track that's not marked as a hiking/biking trail really exists. Also, I need terrain information (how steep is a trail?) that I don't get in good quality from there.
I own a GPS, but I use it only to confirm that I really am where I think I am. I haven't yet bought any maps for it. I'm not a digital native, that's probably one reason why. The other is that I love to spread out a square meter of paper map on my bed. Then I can, without time lapses or errors, see the whole picture or a tiny detail by just moving my head.
First, it's getting the relevant maps. For close to home, the local bookstore is a good address. But they don't have more information on places further away that are not common tourist destinations. The survey agency site mentioned in the last post has links to its sister organizations in many places of the world, that helps. But the Italians only sell to resellers. Luckily, I found someone on the internet who runs a one-man business specialized in this...
With the maps at hand, I set out to plan tracks and places to rest and to sleep. Tourist topographical maps often show restaurants and hotels that are outside towns. The websites of towns generally have links to these places, especially in tourist areas (and if you go by the town sites, you get all the places, not just those that payed to be shown on a touristic site).
To judge distances, I generally go by the old-fashioned string method: Take some sewing thread and lay it as closely as possible over the chosen track, marking the end. When you're done, measure the length against the scale marked on the map. This underestimates the length by app. 10%, but is a good first approach.
I don't generally use google maps because they know only roads suitable for vehicle use and open to the general traffic. These I want to avoid... but I occasionally check the satellite images to see if a track that's not marked as a hiking/biking trail really exists. Also, I need terrain information (how steep is a trail?) that I don't get in good quality from there.
I own a GPS, but I use it only to confirm that I really am where I think I am. I haven't yet bought any maps for it. I'm not a digital native, that's probably one reason why. The other is that I love to spread out a square meter of paper map on my bed. Then I can, without time lapses or errors, see the whole picture or a tiny detail by just moving my head.
Montag, 2. Mai 2011
Planning
The first thing that comes to the mind when thinking about a trip from Germany to Italy is that there are the Alps to cross. Of course, we'd done that a number of times before, but always by car, train or plane. Dad had even done it on his racing bike in the past, together with his father, with his mother driving the "support car". But on foot?
We had spent nearly all our family holidays in the Alps and so knew we would be able to use any footpath that didn't ask for climbing gear. But I didn't feel expert enough to try to find a route myself. So I scanned the internet and bookstores for information on alpine crossings for moderately skilled hikers. The one that runs from Munich to Venice was out of the question, as both cities lie far to the east of the shortest route. The Via Mala/Via Spluga route in eastern Switzerland was an option. But the paths seemed to be quite wide, well suited for people with little alpine experience, but ill suited to our children, who tend to get bored if the path is more than a meter wide and well-traveled. They prefer small paths with lots of rocks, plants and animal prints to look at.
So the decision fell on the E5/Via Alpina route (www.via-alpina.org; the north part of the yellow route). This meant that the finishing line for the first year of hiking was the door of the train station in Oberstdorf.
The first challenge then was to find a route from home to Oberstdorf. The first stage had been easy: as told before, find a village to the south from which we could get back. As Oberstdorf is on the headwaters of the river Iller, which runs to the Danube, meeting it in Ulm, it was logical to choose this old free town as first goal. Luckily, good maps are available from the survey service of Baden-Württemberg (www.lgl-bw.de, unfortunately in German only, but their maps are availalbe in bookstores).
With a daytrip ending in Geislingen in the valley just south to ours, and a weekend trip from Geislingen to Ulm, we reached that goal safely.
We had spent nearly all our family holidays in the Alps and so knew we would be able to use any footpath that didn't ask for climbing gear. But I didn't feel expert enough to try to find a route myself. So I scanned the internet and bookstores for information on alpine crossings for moderately skilled hikers. The one that runs from Munich to Venice was out of the question, as both cities lie far to the east of the shortest route. The Via Mala/Via Spluga route in eastern Switzerland was an option. But the paths seemed to be quite wide, well suited for people with little alpine experience, but ill suited to our children, who tend to get bored if the path is more than a meter wide and well-traveled. They prefer small paths with lots of rocks, plants and animal prints to look at.
So the decision fell on the E5/Via Alpina route (www.via-alpina.org; the north part of the yellow route). This meant that the finishing line for the first year of hiking was the door of the train station in Oberstdorf.
The first challenge then was to find a route from home to Oberstdorf. The first stage had been easy: as told before, find a village to the south from which we could get back. As Oberstdorf is on the headwaters of the river Iller, which runs to the Danube, meeting it in Ulm, it was logical to choose this old free town as first goal. Luckily, good maps are available from the survey service of Baden-Württemberg (www.lgl-bw.de, unfortunately in German only, but their maps are availalbe in bookstores).
With a daytrip ending in Geislingen in the valley just south to ours, and a weekend trip from Geislingen to Ulm, we reached that goal safely.
Why and How
Why should a family from the Southwest of Germany walk through a good part of Europe into Central Italy? More precisely, why should a Mom want to do it (as it is she who's telling this story)?
Well, pilgrimages have become a kind of fashion in Germany these days. Most people choose the "Camino", the way to Santiago de Compostela on the Northwest coast of Spain. But somehow, nothing seemed to connect me/us to Santiago or St. Jake. And after reading the account of Hape Kerkeling, a well-known comedian, I was sure this wasn't my way. I'm not exactly shy of people, but wary of crowds. And there are crowds on the Camino, especially towards the end. So many people that some decide to walk during the night so that they surely have a bed to sleep in during the day... no, that's not my cup of tea.
Then, in the spring of 2008, Daughty, who is in a school run by the Franciscan nuns where Berta Hummel, creator of the drawings that are models for the famous Hummel figurines, was a member of the congregation in the 1920's, went to Assisi with her class. She came back all inspired. That set our goal.
Now, how to achieve it? We had always been hikers, but had done only day trips so far. So we scouted the Internet to find out from which of the villages in the hills to the South of our little town we could come back by bus and train on Sundays after 6p.m. And one fine morning, we set off to try if we could walk the 25 km/16 miles a day needed for such a trip.
All went well, only Mum's old shoes broke, their soles crumbled.
During the next months, we did more hikes and bought new equipment, doing another day trip from the end point of the first, then a weekend trip, and then a whole week, always finding places to stay via internet and using topographic maps with hiking trail overlays. As this is no established pilgrim route, finding the way is part of the quest...
Well, pilgrimages have become a kind of fashion in Germany these days. Most people choose the "Camino", the way to Santiago de Compostela on the Northwest coast of Spain. But somehow, nothing seemed to connect me/us to Santiago or St. Jake. And after reading the account of Hape Kerkeling, a well-known comedian, I was sure this wasn't my way. I'm not exactly shy of people, but wary of crowds. And there are crowds on the Camino, especially towards the end. So many people that some decide to walk during the night so that they surely have a bed to sleep in during the day... no, that's not my cup of tea.
Then, in the spring of 2008, Daughty, who is in a school run by the Franciscan nuns where Berta Hummel, creator of the drawings that are models for the famous Hummel figurines, was a member of the congregation in the 1920's, went to Assisi with her class. She came back all inspired. That set our goal.
Now, how to achieve it? We had always been hikers, but had done only day trips so far. So we scouted the Internet to find out from which of the villages in the hills to the South of our little town we could come back by bus and train on Sundays after 6p.m. And one fine morning, we set off to try if we could walk the 25 km/16 miles a day needed for such a trip.
All went well, only Mum's old shoes broke, their soles crumbled.
During the next months, we did more hikes and bought new equipment, doing another day trip from the end point of the first, then a weekend trip, and then a whole week, always finding places to stay via internet and using topographic maps with hiking trail overlays. As this is no established pilgrim route, finding the way is part of the quest...
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