Weather: ☁️☁️☁️🌥️🌥️
Lunch: 🥪🥪🥪🥪 (4 out 5, Erbsensuppe with Bockwurst in the restaurant at Vogelsang)
Track: 🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪 (4 out of 5, beautiful forest track through the Eifel National Park, with views of the Rursee and Vogelsang)
Hotel: 🛌🛌🛌( 3 out of 5, basic hotel room in an old barack at Vogelsang)
Name of followed trail: unmarked trail across the Ulfttalsperre, Eifelsteig tot Vogelsang.
We left the campsite and went back to the trail, passing the in 1905 build hydroelectric power plant, towards the holiday park. The park has a shop, where we find out that they sell really nice fluffy and crispy croissants. 2nd breakfast within 2 km from the start. We are taking it slow today. We only have 14 km to walk anyway and my leg didn’t magically heal overnight unfortunately. So now we go with compression socks, anti inflammatory cream and slowing down. Tonight we’ll see how it went and make a plan for the next days.
The trail to Vogelsang is beautiful through the hills and forest. The Rursee is a magnificent long lake that meanders through the valley. We get some beautiful views of it today! We can see Vogelsang from afar, it’s quite an impressive complex perched on a hill top.
Before we get there we walk through the abandoned village Wolfseifen. This farmers community was heavily damaged during the war, and a year after the war it was seized by British military as a practice ground. This meant that everyone had to leave the village within 3 weeks. Incredible to think what that would be like..
We continue to Vogelsang where we find a place to sleep and go get some food at the restaurant that offers beautiful views over the Eifel. We get Erbsensuppe with Bockwurst, because our fellow traveler at Wassenberg recommend this to us. It’s a good hearty pea soup, that indeed goes very well with Bockwurst.
Because we can’t get into the hotel before 17.00, we decide on seeing the historical exhibition at the visitor center. Here we get some food for thought about how the Nazis build this educational center and how they used it during their reign.
It was a really interesting exhibition, but in the end we needed to rush slightly , because I’d been reading to many signs and it was nearly closing time 😅.
We met up with Maria, the hotel owner and she brought us to our room in one of the old baracks of the complex. The room is basic, but clean. I put my leg up and we take our time to rest tonight.