Weather:⛅🌤️🌤️☀️🌤️
Lunch: 🥪🥪🥪🥪 (4 out 5, good 2 step lunch in Bad Mergentheim)
Track: 🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪 (4 out of 5, nice trail through forest, fields and villages)
Broken gear: Hiking pole no3
Best item on trail: the slide! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5 out of 5 for surprise, hiker accessibly and fun)
Campsite: ⛺⛺⛺ (4 out of 5, flat spot with an historical tower and fireplace)
Name of followed trail: Main Donau weg.
We have breakfast while Rein and Pepijn are quarreling about who was laying on the others mattress during the night. Apparently their spot was a bit steeper than anticipated, which made for a restless night.
We walk out of the forest and into the vineyards and orchards full of (yet unripe) berries and cherries. We pass through a few villages with beautifully decorated May trees. In Sachenflur we find a vending machine with drinks, so it’s time for a break!
Our trail combines with a lot of other trails in this region. It’s clearly a popular hiking area here!
We walk mainly through the forest. We’re grateful for that, because it’s quite sunny. Over half way our day we walk through Bad Mergentheim, where we go for lunch and a quick resupply. We start our lunch in a bakery, and find another nice cafe a bit further in town. After this 2step lunch, we continue through this nice village, past the spa Resort that has been here for centuries. We get a bit lost here, but find our way again before we get out of town. We walk to the next village and go past a slide! Of course the slide needs to be tested on hiker friendliness …😁
We walk into a small village where we het our water at a café (lucky us!) and continue the last kilometers through the forest. We hike until we get to an old watchtower with a picnic table and a flat (flatter than yesterday) spot for our tent. We gather some wood so we can make a small fire. There is even a stone fire pit! My hiking pole breaks when being used as a tool to get dead wood from the trees. Yet we gratefully use it this evening, and stare into the flames while we watch over the town of Weikersheim.
What a great life we have. So good to share it with friends too!