Me, myself and I in the Allgäu

“For how many people would you like to book a table?” – “One. It’s just me.”
An unfamiliar situation, like some more during those four days I stayed in the Allgäu. But then there were a lot of moments that didn’t feel strange at all.

It were different things that led to this one-woman-short-trip. One of them was the fact that I indeed perceived this as a challenge, an exceeding of my couple comfort zone.
At the same time there are so many thoughts in my mind, so many things I’m thinking about these days that this seemed the logic step – to take the time to get in close contact to me, solely me, again.
… all of this in a surrounding that doesn’t hold a lot of distractions, but always helps me to relax: the mountains.

The first ordeal was a whole day full of rain. That wasn’t exactely what I had imagined. And although I enjoy being in the mountains, I’m not enjoying touristy towns at their foot with all the infrastructure that focuses on either senior couples or families. “Haus Sonnenschein”, “Pension Alpenblick”, “Gästezimmer Bergruh” … this is not my world. Water parks and petting zoos neither.
This was a rather long day that I spend in the (tiny and crowded) spa and most of the time in the reading nook of my hotel room at the Explorer Hotel Oberstdorf. So after one day I had thoroughly read already all the magazines I had brought with me.

Luckily I didn’t need them on the following days, but the reading nook kept being my favourite place in the hotel in the evening.

The next days brought sunshine and the meadows glinted in a green tone that seemed almost unreal. Actually that was what I thought more than once: “How unreal beautiful, how kitschy!” Cows on green meadows in front of a snow covered mountain cliché panorama, turquoise lakes in which you could see reflections of mountains and forests, burbling streams that run down the hill through cool humid forests, a spectacular gorge with deep cliffs that is a showcase of the forces of nature. I soaked all of this in. I loved to walk in my own rhythm, didn’t need anything else, sometimes spoke to myself, felt my feet hurt at the end of the day.
Good, quiet times that made more aware of me as individuum again – good as well to realize what you are missing.

 

 

Finally some notes on the places I’ve walked:
Trettach valley – lake Freiberg – Stillach valley – lake Schlappold and Fellhorn – Walsertal – Breitachklamm

…and places to eat that I liked:
Café “gruben 1a”
Bäckerei Härle Fischen
Gaststätte Faistenoy
Alpe Dornach
“Das Fetzwerk”