Circles of Tail Chasing -- Part Two

The path from Ebermannstadt.  Picturesque is the norm.

I am standing alongside a small pathway.  The pathway runs along a lazy creek in a green wood.  To my left, behind low stone walls, is the village of Ebermannstadt.  Stepping off of the tiny two-wagon electric train is to step into a postcard.  The scene is made less picturesque by interposing the image of myself, clad only in my underwear, donning my hiking shorts and shoes.  If you were watching, sorry for that.  

Bavaria, that is where I am.  Bayern in Deutsch, Bavaria is the largest state in Germany.  Located in the southeast of the country, it borders the Czech Republic on the east, and Austria to the southeast and south.  The Volk will tell you, in a direct and polite manner, that they are not German, but rather Bavarian.  But wait, I am not really in Bavaria.  I am actually standing, in my underwear, alongside a small brook in Franconia.  The Volk here will tell you, in a direct and polite manner, that they are not Bavarian, but rather Franken.  So, if I was offending anyone, it would be the Franken Volk.

If you are confused by all this regionalism, you would not be alone.  It harkens back to the days of the Germanic city states, and it will all lead to endless arguments.  Suffice it to say that you can read up on it if you like.  The dizzying array of Gothic tribes (Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Franks, etc.) will keep a scholar up at night, replacing dreams of lovely teaching assistants.  There were tiny kingdoms, city states, and a succession of Holy Roman Emperors, the study of which will keep you out of trouble for a good long time.  Have fun with that.   

It is a veritable barrage of cute and tidy.  Very tidy.

Decently dressed, I set out along the small path.  I was experiencing a self-induced déjà vu due to having reconnoitered the hiking route via Google Earth.  There were a bit over eight kilometers to travel and dinner was a seven.  One hour and forty-five minutes, five miles to go, uphill with a backpack.  Obviously, it was time for more ambulating and less cogitating.  

The countryside hereabouts is tidy.  The streets are tidy, the paths are tidy, the houses are tidy, everything in its appointed place.  As I revved up to full hiking pace, I wondered if I would have to pass a test or something, a checkpoint to approve the appearance of my gear.  I knew I would fail any such examination.  For one thing, I had no poles.  I believe there is a regulation on the books somewhere, both in Austria and Germany, that one cannot hike without Nordic walking sticks.  These people are nuts for the things, flailing them about as they hike.  I had none.  As an added offense, I was smoking a short cigar as I strode along.  I'm sure that's also verboten in the hiking rule book.  

Impossibly Cute

It was the work of a few hundred meters to be out of the village and ambling across the fields.  Unlike the United States, where walking is viewed as a sure sign of poverty and thus not encouraged, here there are lots of walking paths that do not involve risking ones life on the edge of a busy roadway.  Wandering across the eerily familiar fields, I watched for my landmarks.  Across the railway line for the old steam train, turn left towards Gasseldorf, leaving the broad valley behind.  From Gasseldorf, skirt along the hillside, keeping the slope to the right.  Uphill and more uphill, following the pathway to the village of Unterleinleiter (try saying that after three Biers).  

With both my Cute-O-Meter and Tidy-O-Meter pegged at eleven, I pushed up the long sloping valley that leads to Veilbronn.  Checking the hour, I picked up the pace, determined to be there in time for dinner.  As I learned early in life when the chicken platter hit the family dinner table, there are two kinds of people in the world:  The Quick and The Hungry.  

The walls of the valley above Veilbronn

Then there was the sign for the hamlet of Veilbronn, the promised turn in the trail, the hotel.  A row of motos stood outside of Landhaus Sponsel-Regus, with folks milling about on the street-side terrace.  I walked up the front steps and into the outstretched hand of Steve W., an old friend from Seattle.  There were introductions all around, an impossible array of names, and the strangeness of suddenly adding a face to folks I heretofore had known only online.  I was saved the embarrassment of remembering everyone, at least for the present, by the call to dinner.  And thus began a three day food orgy.

One of the extraordinary meals from the folk at Landhaus Sponsel-Regus

The food was amazing, made even better by the sauce of hunger from hiking.  Every dinner proved to be a multi-course extravaganza.  We had a starter buffet, an entire room of tables groaning under the weight of various appetizers and noshes.  Once the vorspeisen was exhausted, there were one of three main courses.  My table mates and I quickly mastered the main course numbering system.  Number One was some lighter fare, fish or some such.  Number Two was the meaty Man's Fare.  Number Three was some new-age vegetarian stuff.  The mantra became "Always choose Number Two."

After two plates of appetizers and salads and a main course of Schweinbraten, I have to admit that the edge had gone from my ravenous nature.  But wait, there's more!  Not just dessert, but a dessert buffet.  I don't know how "Nachspeisenbuffet" sounds in Deutsch, but in English "Dessert Buffet" has a decadent ring to it that just sucks me right in.

And then there was cheese.  Lots of cheese of all sorts.  My English mate Paul and I engaged in a brief round of Wallace and Gromit impersonations, whereupon we fell upon the cheese like good Trenchermen.

Dinner was followed by groans, and then a general waddling to the terrace for drinks and smokes.  Somewhere during the course of the dinner, a suave Italian gent introduced himself as Alessandro.  This was the generous person who had graciously agreed to allow me to share a room with him.  As he leaned over our table, he said "Of course, the bed is il matrimonial," which received a good laugh all around.  I laughed as well, but somewhere during the dessert buffet, or possibly the cheese course, the memory was driven from my head.

A cool Franconian evening, good company, good cigars, what more could a traveler want?  All of my self-induced cares and frustrations brought about by travel planning had disappeared into a cloud of goodwill.  Once the journey has begun, anything that happens is fair play, events to be dealt with and thus incorporated into later tall tales.  Pesky details that happen before travel begins are vexations, but those vexations had passed.  The evening melted away in multilingual camaraderie and laughter.

Tired and sated, I made my way upstairs to my new digs.  Entering the room, I was greeted by darkness.  Quiet as a cat, I settled my rucksack to the floor and let my eyes adjust.  In the bit of light filtering into the room, I observed the lone bed and the peacefully sleeping figure upon it.  Now began the conundrum:  How does one slip into bed with another man, a man whom one has met only in passing, and who is very much sound asleep?

I searched through my groggy memory for lost bits of Miss Manners columns, some hint of the etiquette required for the current situation, but I came up blank.  Bellowing out "Hi Honey, I'm home!" and then flopping on the bed seemed a bit gauche.  Alessandro was sleeping peacefully, so much so that I was fully at a loss.  Fortunately, this is Germany (or Bavaria, or Franconia) so the bed was typically large and equipped with two separate comforters.  Such is the way here, probably a product of generational fatigue brought on by sleeping with cover-snatching spouses.  Silent as a ninja, I purloined the extra duvet and pillow from the bed and retreated to the hallway.  I made a sleeping nest of the comforter and settled in.  Darkness washed over me and I was asleep.

Forty years ago and but two score kilometers to the northwest from where I lay sleeping, the US Army had taught me a valuable lesson.  I learned that I could sleep anywhere.  Like the old Doctor Seuss character in Green Eggs and Ham, the places I could sleep were endless.  In a box, with a fox, on a train, in a plane, etc, etc.  After soldiering came a stint of commercial fishing.  Sleeping in a bunk on a crab boat atop the the roiling waters of the Bering Sea is much like trying to catch a nap on an amusement park ride, yet I can attest to many an untroubled slumber wedged between my survival suit and a steel bulkhead.  Given my history of goofy sleeping quarters, a comforter on the floor of a nice hotel in Franconia was a lark.

And that is where Alessandro found me while on his way to a midnight micturation.

     "Marco, why are you sleeping on the floor?"
     "Hallo Alessandro.  I didn't want to wake you."
     "Or perhaps you didn't want to share the same bed?"

How can one argue with that sort of graciousness?  I gathered up my nest and trundled it to my side of our bed.  Both of us settled in, wished each other a good night, and I remember no more.

Next up:  Part Three -- Hiking Franconia