Klausen to Schweich

Ripening Grapes Along the Trail

The guidebook contained a warning that for the next stretch we would not be able to find any food or water. We'd come to expect that we could get a nice lunch somewhere, or at least an ice cream in the afternoon, so it was a bit of a shock! But prepared, with trail mix and fruit in our packs, and extra water. The hotel owner was nice enough to make us breakfast at 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning but he clearly looked very tired. He even forgot the soft-boiled egg. Egg cups were on the table -- and we didn't have the heart to ask him where the eggs were.

From Klausen, we walked to Klüsserath, a small town along the Mosel. It was too early for lunch, so we lingered just a bit to read the story of the Rudemsmännchen (link in German):

In the old days, the town of Klüsserath and a neighboring town had a fight over the ownership of a piece of forest. The mayor of the other town swore by God and all that is holy that the piece of forest belonged to his town even though it didn't - and after his death, he was condemned to wander the forest as a ghost. 

Rudemsmännchen's specialty is leading hikers astray, and we actually did manage to go down the wrong path for about 20 minutes until we decided to turn around and realized we'd missed a perfectly obvious turn.

Rudemsmännchen in Klüsserath

Very fortunately further down the trail, the marking was quite clear, and we didn't get lost again. M C stands for Mosel Camino, and the yellow arrow is generally one of the Camino signs, even in Spain but the exclamation point is extra:

We enjoyed another beautiful small chapel along the way. Lovely flowers (real flowers, by the way):

We also walked by a very attractive Stations of the Cross sequence with the pictures made from mosaics, quite new and colorful:

We were lucky not to get lost again - there's another town called Schleich not too far away - and we almost mixed up the Schweich and Schleich signs at one crossing. But we followed the shell, even when our path led through a meadow with sheep, who complained noisily but let us pass:

Sheep along the way to Schweich

We finally arrived in Schweich in the early evening. We were both a little grumpy toward the end since the trail was really long, 23 km and 570 m elevation.  In some places the marking was not as good as it had been at other stretches of the trail. So we were very happy to arrive at the hotel!

Because it was Sunday, nobody was at the hotel, so we had to call the hotel owner when we arrived in town. She opened for us and two other pilgrims. We much appreciated her help and enjoyed the clean room with shower. The hotel was a little old-fashioned in some respects, but we enjoyed some of the decor:

In the evening, we had an excellent dinner with chantrelles, an ice cream, and a cooling thunderstorm soon after we arrived back at our room.