Breakfast at the hotel in Epfenhofen began at 8 and the room was already packed when I arrived just after. It was nothing special as a breakfast but it set me up for the day.
I had planned out a route on Komoot to take me back to the Ostweg and, after settling up and saying goodbye to the friendly owners, I set off. I walked back up the hill behind Epfenhofen, veering off the Komoot route to take a shorter path to Achdorf, passing back through Blumberg like the day before. I would return to Blumberg yet again a couple of days later when I began walking the Schluchtensteig trail to follow on from the Ostweg.
On leaving the last houses in Blumberg behind, the trail descended into the woods where I was able to veer off to take in a waterfall before reaching Achdorf across meadows that had great views of the tiny village. There were more people about today as it was Sunday, and the friendly greetings came hard and fast.
Just outside Achdorf, I stopped for a rest at a beautiful modern chapel for Compostella-bound pilgrims. Just opposite it, there was a self-serve honesty bar carved into an old tree. As with the one in the well a few days earlier, I was passing by too early in the day to make the most of it.
From there, it was a fair few kilometres along a road (with only a couple of cars), before the trail veered off to follow the Wutach gorge. There was a bad weather alternative along the bottom of the valley, but as the weather was fine, I took the higher route that came with a warning about the tough terrain, falling rocks and fallen trees. The trail was narrow, dropping away to one side to the river far below and occasionally lined on the other by rock faces with strange strata formations.
It was a pretty athletic section of trail, going up and down a lot, with one hairy section around a rockfall where I stopped a few times for people coming in the opposite direction, including a group of 20 or so at one point with guides from the local hiking club. Despite the technical nature of this section and its length, I really enjoyed it, particularly the moment when I found myself in a heavily scented grove of wild garlic.
As this section was part of the Schluchtensteig, I would be walking it again on the first day of that trail, but in the opposite direction, from Stühlingen to Blumberg.
On emerging from it, I crossed the river, passed a small inn and then headed uphill along the Old Salt Path (the Alter Salzweg) before descending to the station in Weizen, another stop on the steam train line.
From there, I followed roads all the way into Stühlingen. On arriving, I went to the one café open on a Sunday afternoon. It turned out to be part of the local care home, meaning all the old folks could come down for coffee and cake and see people or have visits from the family. A pretty smart idea and a very moving spot.
My hotel turned out to be at the top of the hill out of Stühlingen. It was a fair climb up there, but the place turned out to be wonderful with a very comfortable room in an atmospheric old building. The restaurant was closed on Sundays, so I had to go back down to the town to eat where the friendly owner at a place called Sheeper’s served me an excellent burger.
The next day would be my final one on the Ostweg and would mostly unfold in Switzerland on a glorious trail with just one tough climb.
After an excellent breakfast, I settled up, said goodbye to the lovely owner and set off back down the hill into Stühlingen. To avoid the main road, I followed the quiet back road from the day before to a spot where the trail veered off to take an underpass to the Swiss border.
I’d begun to panic the night before as I’d be crossing a border from an EU state to a non-EU one, post-Brexit, and I had left my French residence permit at home. I had even got my wife to send me a photo of the permit just in case. In the end, my fears turned out to be totally unfounded. There was no one around at the border and I just walked into a new country as if crossing the street.
From there until the very outskirts of Schaffhausen, it was like hiking through an agricultural dream world. Beautiful fields, orchards, vineyards, terrific views and the incredibly pretty village of Schleitheim with its duck houses by the river and glorious church spire.
From the village, the trail headed uphill to reach the final summit on the Ostweg, the Schlossranden at 889 metres. I took a rest at one point on a platform with a wonderful view back over the village. There was an open section across some fields before the final climb to the summit where there was a ruined castle and a viewing tower. Just before this final climb, I had another close encounter with two hares, one of which was just a few metres away.
It was a fairly tough climb and the viewing tower at the top was another of those shaky-looking affairs that I didn’t have the nerve to climb.
From there, it was one long, gentle descent to Schaffhausen through beautiful woods and meadows – a real delight. I was surprised to see the woods and meadows continue to the very edge of the city. Unlike when I arrived in Basel on the Westweg, I couldn’t possibly suspect that there was a city just below. But then, all of a sudden, on emerging from the woods, I found myself at a city bus stop.
I walked all the way into the city where I took a train from the station to go and see the falls on the Rhine for which Schaffhausen is famous. I wasn’t expecting much as the falls aren’t very high, but they were pretty spectacular all the same, making a thunderous din with terrific amounts of water crashing over them and the possibility to get up close on various walkways.
I then returned to the pretty city centre to settle in to my very comfortable hotel with its funky Tex-Mex restaurant where I ate a huge dinner to reward myself for completing the trail.
And so that was the Ostweg, no doubt the easiest of the three north-south Black Forest trails (despite some very long days). While the Westweg had been spectacular with its endless summits and misty forests, and the Mittelweg had taken me through the world of high-altitude farms in beautiful clearings, the Ostweg was much more bucolic with its lower altitudes and meadows. I’d be hard pressed to say which one was my favourite as they all have their own particular charm, but I’d really like to go back and do the first two in spring as there’s something truly magical about that season.
And my 2022 hiking in Germany was far from over. The next day, I would be taking a train and a bus back to Stühlingen to embark upon another trail, the six-day Schluchtensteig through the gorges of the southern Black Forest. To be continued…
Footsteps 