Day 7 Esslingen to Neckartenzlingen 25 k

It was a quiet, pretty uneventful day. The weather was back to overcast, the path was fine, easy walking, with pleasant but not spectacular scenery. The way out of Esslingen passed through the middle of a street market and then circled the edge of town before crossing the Neckar. It’s a decent sized river. Fast moving.

Vegetables at the market were incredible. Chard leaves you coukd use to swaddle a baby. Heads of cabbage bigger than soccerballs. Sweet potatoes that were so huge I had to look at the sign to see what they were. Also tons of different mushrooms, including pfefferlinge - cool new word. A few days ago we met someone in the forest who was looking for them.

A few hundred metres after crossing the river, the path goes straight up into the woods, past a children’s farm (maybe a place for parties or school groups or ???). It was probably less than an hour to the first village. An older woman stopped to chat on the street. She said, I’m so happy to see you! But then I could not understand the rest of what she said, so I’m not really sure why! The entrance to that village is the first and only place I’ve seen houses that need painting. Granted I am only in smaller places, but it’s still striking to me how tidy this part of the world is.

Several leaf blowers today. Seems like people just blow the leaves into the street. Then what happens to them?

I passed a bunch of dog walkers on the way through big vegetables fields and into Denkdorf, village number 2. I still have not quite got the coffee thing down in the bakery cafés, which are the only places to get coffee in small villages. They tend to use a preset coffee machine, and I’m not sure which button I want them to press. Cappuccino had way too much milk today. Tomorrow I’ll ask for something different. Although tomorrow, I will end up in Tübingen, a university town, so there might be fancy coffee there!

Nice little pilgrim corner in the church in Denkdorf. There was also a stamp in a little box on a post in a sign on the road about 500 metres on. And then a very short ugly stretch under a highway overpass. They always put me in mind of the too many mystery novels I’ve read.

A big chunk of today’s woods had so many paths in so many different directions that someone painted yellow (Camino) stripes on the trees to show where to go. I was very glad of them! It was like a maze.

Past some biodiversity art (bugs!). Another small farm store where everything was too big for a person with a backpack. Lunch on a bench beside a well in the centre of a village. Beside the well a statue of a man playing a flute. Past an alpaca farm. And then eventually on to a bike path with fab views out over the Neckar valley and some huge hills beyond (wondering if they are in my future).

I wasn’t sure exactly how to get where I needed to be tonight. I’m off the Jakobsweg at an Airbnb, a big room that a young couple rent in their house. It’s in Neckartenzlingen, the third of 3 Neckar towns in a row. Neckarhausen and Neckartailfingen were the first two

I gave up the good views and walked down to the river in Neckartailfingen, where there was a bike path that I could take to get here. Neckartailfingen is the normal end of the stage and is definitely the better place to stay (based on my short walks through both towns).

Tge dinner choices tonight were Italian, burgers, or Greek. I went with Greek.

Clothes are drying on the very good rads! Tomorrow morning I will do some more rejigging to get back on the Jakobsweg. I am not really sure but I think tomorrow is about 24 or 25.Read more