Beautiful stage on the eastern edge of the Vosges Mountains. The route starts on asphalt through villages and past grape fields and then goes into the woods and over hills. Once again we pass some beautiful chateaus including the grand chateau Du Haut-Koenigsbourg. The route ends among the half-timbered houses in Ribeauvillé.
Stage 30 of the GR5 already, plus 3 stages from Heerlen to Spa, we are now 33 stages on the road. How fast it goes, and at the same time how long ago it seems that we had breakfast at Van der Valk Heerlen, packed our backpacks and set off.
Rest days are nice from time to time and certainly necessary, but we like the hiking days best. Every time we pack our gear, it is another surprise what we will encounter and where we will sleep tonight. When we write these stories, we know how the day went. But when we leave in the morning, we have no idea whether it will be a hard or light hike, who we will meet to have a chat with, whether it will rain or whether the weather will remain lovely or how our feet will feel on arrival. All this makes every day an adventure, wonderful!
Again today we pack our things and head out after chatting with the wine farmer and a fellow camper who is on a bike trip to Rome.
It is a long walk from the campground to where we can pick up the GR5 again, between the grape fields with a view of the mountains.
Once on the trail, we walk south along the road for a bit, then head west into the mountains. Today we stay fairly close to the foot of the Vosges Mountains, but nevertheless, today will be quite some ascending and descending.
The last few stages we were rather inclined to push the first break as far ahead as possible (preferably to the top of a mountain peak) but today we try to make the first break around 1/3 of the way up, hoping to save some more energy for the end. In hindsight, this turns out to be a golden move….
We set up our chairs in the sunshine and take a good break. This break is followed by a tough climb through the woods until about halfway through the hike. The paths get narrower and narrower, and eventually the trail zigzags up steeply, until we reach the highest point on the last stretch via a staircase. Suddenly we find ourselves in the hustle and bustle of Chateau du Haut Koenigsbourg, where dozens of cars are parked and where people even come by buses.
In this touristy hustle and bustle we can’t resist a cup of coffee and a cold Coke on a terrace. Nice and sunny, with a beautiful view of the valley and the mountains.
But more and more dark clouds appear above us. As soon as the coffee is finished, we decide to hurry a bit, so that we will have descended as far as possible when it starts raining and the paths and stones become slippery. The last part we will have to descend very steeply on winding paths and we prefer to be down before the weather gets too bad.
For the rest of the route we do not take a break and continue walking briskly, but unfortunately we don’t make it all the way down when the rain starts. We still pass some nice chateaus, but unfortunately we can’t pay much attention to them.
Halfway down the last slope it starts to rain heavily and we have to concentrate to get down the small paths with slippery stones in one piece. Soaked, we arrive in Ribeauvillé, which turns out to be a beautiful village even in the rain. Again we enjoy all the old half-timbered houses, small local stores and lush flower boxes everywhere, but we keep going and are glad when we arrive at the campground 2km further on. We quickly pitch the tent in the rain and for the first time this trip, we sit soaked in a wet awning among our belongings. Fortunately, everything in the backpacks stayed dry. And after a cup of coffee and a good shower, the sun shines again and we can put some things to dry and set up the inner tent.
Fortunately, better weather is forecast for tomorrow and we will do some shopping for our next 100 kilometer long trip, to the highest peaks of the Vosges Mountains. On this part of the route there’s 1 hotel and 1 campsite where we can spend the night, but there are plenty of places and huts where we can wildcamp. We’re looking forward to it, this will be another adventure!