On the road again - Saxony "Malerweg"

Day 1 - Thursday
27km

 

Got up as early as 3:30 am to catch the first train to Dresden. As I walked to the station I realized it felt good to walk with my backpack again and I was immediately thinking of my Ireland trip earlier this year. Deadly tired I was very happy to have the whole compartment to my own, yeah. No one is going to Dresden this early and in the middle of the week, haha. So I just stretched out and slept the better part of the two hours on three very comfortable adjoining seats.
Changed in Dresden to the train to Pirna, took the bus and started my hike from Pirna Liebethal at exactly 8am. As I had roughly 27km to go today I wanted to be off as early as possible and just take it slow.

 

Excited to get going

The trail is very well waymarked and led alongside a river at first with the famous sandstone rocks towering left and right. Despite low hanging clouds there was only some spray rain every now and then not even enough to get the rain gear out. The broad well maintained path led through a tiny village, alongside some fields and then through another valley with those moss covered sandstone pillars. The utter silence was only disturbed by some dripping water and an occasional chirp of a bird. Within this scenery it just couldn't get any more magical! I felt like being in a haunted maze of some fairytale.

Dark clouds no rain

As I neared the village of Wehlen I met more and more people out on a walk. Had a coffee and a piece of cheesecake on the terrace of a cafe overlooking the river Elbe already having accomplished half of today's track at mid day.

Climbing up a steep path mostly made of steps just carved into the stone I arrived at the top of the rocks flanking the north bank of the river drenched in sweat. I need to work harder in the gym! Still I settled to a nice pace and enjoyed being rid of people once again.
Not before long they bothered me again with their presence. Gone was my sought-for solitude as I was nearing one of THE tourist attractions of the area: The Bastei. It's actually only a couple of nice view points, but I have to admit the views are absolutely stunning! No kidding. On a weekend with nice weather the place must be overrun!

View from the "Bastei"

After having had my share I kept on going down endless stairs, passing by a man singing loudly in the woods and eventually reached the bottom with knees more than close to protesting. With the heavy load on my back it was just beyond fun.
Walked for a good while along the bottom of a gorge with some lake before the path climbed again. This time not so steep and I basically raced up leaving a lot of people with just a small or even no backpack easily behind. My backpack was now part of my body like it was when hiking Ireland, hehe.
After some fields and more climbing up and down including the amazing narrow Wolf's Gorge I finally reached today's destination Hohnburg at around 4:30. Actually I wanted to have a beer somewhere before going to the campsite nearby but all the places looked closed and deserted. So I headed over to the campsite straight away which was another 1.5km outside the village. Arg.
Got myself a beer in the small shop there, pitched my tent, had a shower, some small dinner from my stash of food and sat under a tree relaxing. Read for a bit before I hit the sack after such a long day with the clock not even showing 21:00

 



Wolfsschlucht (Wolf's Gorge)

Dinner: Egg, beer and beef jerkey, yummy!