Out of Austria

After bliss­ful sleep Fri­day night in our lovely hos­tel room—including a loft that held two of the five beds, a real thrill for our 5-year-old—we awoke on Sat­ur­day morn­ing with good inten­tions of get­ting gro­ceries and see­ing a bit of Bre­genz and the var­i­ous spe­cial events tak­ing place. Instead Andrew and I spent the whole morn­ing blaz­ing away on our respec­tive com­put­ers try­ing to get things done that the nor­mal course of pil­grim­age days does not per­mit. Only at 1 p.m. did we finally emerge from the fog and declare our inten­tion to get out of the room at last.

But it was exactly then that the door flew open and in burst our dear Aussie friends Phil and Mar­i­anne and their three boys, also res­i­dent in Stras­bourg these days. I’m not sure whose expres­sion was more amus­ing, mine of dumb­found­ed­ness or my in-laws’ of smug sat­is­fac­tion at hav­ing kept such a secret from us. Zeke was delighted to see his three pals too (not least of all because they brought along a late birth­day present of Play­mo­bil dinosaurs) and all our plans very hap­pily changed. We wan­dered out and found a local ven­dor sell­ing Back­hendl (baked chicken in the local style) so we bought a flock and sat in the park on the edge of Lake Con­stance enjoy­ing good food and com­pany. After that Andrew and I had to devote a cou­ple more hours of our time to the idol of the inter­net at a café; the rest of the evening was spent play­ing in the hos­tel toy­room with Legos and just loung­ing around and chat­ting. We didn’t know ahead of time that it was exactly what we needed, but it was.

Most of the next morn­ing was dis­si­pated in pack­ing up with all the stuff we’ll need for the next 12 days till our next refill and meet­ing with Andrew’s par­ents before we real­ized that it was Sun­day, and by the time we real­ized that, it was too late to do any­thing about church. We hoped for the same happy bless­ing as last week in find­ing evening church, but it didn’t hap­pen, so we made do with our usual morn­ing and evening devo­tions and lis­ten­ing to Bach’s Mass in B Minor instead. We said our last good­bye to Zeke and Roger and Ginny in Bre­genz (when we meet again they’ll be along for the rest of the trip). Phil walked along with us for the first 10 km and we intro­duced him to the plea­sures of whack­ing the ubiq­ui­tous pink touch-me-nots, whose seed pods explode on con­tact. If it’s pos­si­ble to be bril­liant at con­sid­er­ate­ness, then Phil and Mar­i­anne are: they had brought us fresh bread, Provençal nougat, and Stras­bourg cook­ies, a packet of dried mango slices (our favorite dried fruit), and some hand cream for me (the sun and wind are pretty hard on the skin, and I was get­ting fed up with my tiny hiker’s pot of Vaseline)—and dur­ing the 10 km accom­pa­ni­ment, Phil pushed their youngest’s stroller hold­ing not their youngest but our back­packs. Wow, 10 km with­out any­thing hang­ing off our shoul­ders… it was amaz­ing. And a fore­taste of Italy, when we can ditch most of our stuff in the camper van and walk a lit­tle lighter. Not to men­tion more authentically—Luther and his com­pan­ion were allowed a knife and a small bag, noth­ing more. Smart friars.

Sun­day was also remark­able in that it was the first really glo­ri­ous day we’ve had after four weeks on the road. The sun was bright and warm, it wasn’t too breezy, and for once we weren’t cold. The land is a per­fectly flat flood plain ringed round with moun­tains, devoted now to corn and cows. At every turn the fields were cov­ered with pale pur­ple autumn cro­cuses. Once we saw an emerald-green lizard pok­ing his head up through a crack in the pave­ment (until a cyclist whizzed by and nearly decap­i­tated it).

This was in stark con­trast to some of the small towns we passed through. Most things are closed on Sun­days, of course, but the McDonald’s in Hohen­ems seemed to cram in all of the local teenagers, that is, those of the local teenagers who weren’t roar­ing up and down the streets on motor­cy­cles and scoot­ers. (I guess it is pos­si­ble to get bored with the gor­geous scenery after a life­time of look­ing at it.)

After 28 km we pulled in for the evening at Gasthof Adler, wel­comed by the very friendly local fam­ily curi­ous to hear all about our trip and express­ing, as many peo­ple have on our trip so far, that the dif­fer­ences between Luther­ans and Catholics really aren’t all that great (which per­haps means, not worth 1700 km on foot!). I sacked out pretty early, as I seem to be get­ting the cold now that Andrew’s just recov­er­ing from (prayers please!). Another night’s rest, another break­fast, another day of glo­ri­ous weather—at last—and before long we were walk­ing all the Rhine, out of Aus­tria and into… Liechtenstein!

Anne-Sylvie says:
September 20, 2010 at 8:08 pm
Hello!
I’m glad you finally had some “glo­ri­ous days” — glo­ri­ous weather -… That’s what I call “l’arrière-saison”.. In most France it was here this week end and I hope it will stay for a few more days in all Europe.. before the real fall sea­son begins.
Good luck for the walk! Courage!
AS, (Sad not to be on the road as you are).
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Hans Wiersma says:
September 20, 2010 at 9:34 pm
Two coun­tries down, three more to go (yes, Licht­en­stein counts)!
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Debra Bendis says:
September 20, 2010 at 10:59 pm
Yes, prayers for walk­ing health, Sarah. It’s been won­der­ful to fol­low you, and I’ve shared the news at ttp://christiancentury.org/blogs/archive/2010–09/luther-walk. Bon voyage!
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paul sailhamer says:
September 27, 2010 at 7:44 pm
Did you con­sider a brief stop at the Mon­u­ment for Jan Hus at Lake Con­stance. Sober­ing and dignified.
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