Eagles, Monks and Schnapps.

It was with some trepidation that we awoke this morning to the realisation that the walking would start today. After a wonderful breakfast the receptionist, in the Fischerhaus Hotel Starnberg, started to explain the route out of Starnberg and how we could find the King Ludwig Way. This is one of the friendliest places I have ever stayed in and when we arrived down in the reception area she presented us with several maps of today's walk along with bottles of water and apples. A great start to our journey and so it was with heightened spirits and a bounce to our step that we walked up the road that would lead to the Maisinger Schlucht. Soon we were walking through a rural landscape with clusters of Bavarian style houses glistening in the bright sunshine. We entered the Maisinger forest and were guided by a wet, stoney, wood path that meandered in unison with the river that flowed against our direction of walking. I forgot to say that one of the first directional signs we encountered was not the large K for the KLW but rather the yellow scallop shell on the blue background for the Camino that goes from Munich to Santiago. We were on another Camino as we walked the forest path surrounded by the beautiful colours of nature bursting out of her Winter sleep and embracing the the sounds of Spring as young finches, thrushes and other small multicoloured young birds found their singing voices. This all added to the beauty of the first five miles which seemed to fly by but I had to remind Mary that today's walk was going to be about 16 miles and that sprinting pace wouldn't last all day. A sensible paced walk brought us into the Bavarian hamlet of  Aschering where we had hoped to make a pit stop but with it being Easter Tuesday everything was closed so the order of the day was to keep walking. After Aschering the terrain changed from the sheltered fairly flat wooded path with the strong sunlight streaming through the trees to a white gravel road that climbed , at times steeply, through rolling countryside that was broken up by the sight of Bavarian Churches with onion bulb shaped spires dotted in the distance. A lunch of bottled water and apples sitting on a log watching eagles doing graceful gliding, as they looked for their lunch, was a very soothing experience. Suitably refreshed we headed on only this time battling against a strong headwind that had suddenly appeared along with dark angry looking clouds. It was a windswept duo, though thankfully dry, that finally reached the historic monestry at Andechs