Hello Hike and Nature Friends

Some of you may know that I mentioned that I wanted to hike the 4 days Lieser Pfad tour. It was the second most beautiful Hike Tour 2018 in Germany. You know you want to hike there when you see the photos from the website (below). I did the 2nd tour a while ago and wanted to do all 4 now. Well, little did I know. But let's start from the beginning.

^{Source: Vulkaneifel - Lieser Pfad}

We planned to get a car from the airport which was the cheapest option. I would drive home from my night shift, grab my backpack and travel bag, and jump into the tram on the way to the airport. I already knew this would become hard, remembering the last time I did it in Bad Bertrich. I also knew hiking 4 days in a row would be even harder. But we had just 4 days and wanted to use them at maximum. We decided to drive the car always to the end of each tour and take the bus to the start of the tour. That way we could always jump into the car and drive to the hotel and won't have to wait for the bus at the end of the tour.

Day 1

So it happened as planned. We got that car and drove to Daun, the start of the 2nd tour. Then we got into our hotel which was small but nice.

There is not much to see besides the bed and the shower. We got a nice view of the calm garden.

We unpacked a bit and got our hiking clothes and shoes on, went to the bus station a few meters away, and drove to the starting point. Not the starting point but close to it.

We had to walk around 15 - 20 minutes from the bus station to the source of the Lieser where the start point is.

Somehow, I expected a rock where the water would come out. But here you could watch into that hole and you saw a pipe where the Lieser comes out.

This is the complete tour, inclusive walk from the bus station in Boxberg to the Lieser source. The tour was declared easy and you must walk downhill for the most time.

There was not much to see besides the track and we had problems with the weather. It rained on and off, and on the last five kilometers, the high grass made my shoes and pants wet. My feet were swimming in the shoes.

At one point I had my hood up and something flew between my cheek and hood and stung my cheek. 5 days later it is still slightly swollen and itchy. I have no idea what it was.
We walked most times beside the Lieser and here are some photos I shot.

It's a shame that the little rest area was full of rubbish. I'm always amazed why people never take their rubbish with them. I could not take a photo from any angle without trash.

The tour guides you through a village and there were these wedding dolls with faces. As I took this photo a man came and walked towards the house and I saw that he was one of the faces. That was funny.

The last photo was when the grass was high and everything became wet at this point. You couldn't even see the path in this photo because everything was growing over the path.

We had to walk at the side of a field and then through a wood again. We got wet from top to bottom. The end of the tour was in the village where our hotel and car were. So we went straight to the hotel and took a hot shower and tried to dry our clothes and shoes over the heater.
We checked Google for a nice restaurant but did not shoot any photos of the food.
We felt tired and already in pain which we did not expect on the first day. Sure, I couldn't sleep because I was coming off the night shift, but that was bad enough.

Here is when the disaster started

Day 2

^{Source: Wikipedia}

I woke up exhausted and felt pain in my feet and legs. I was also wondering why my back hurt so much and blamed it on the bed. I wasn't the only one in pain. We decided to skip the day and decide later what we would do. Run the 2nd tour on the 3rd day or run the 3rd tour then. Later that day we felt better and thought it might be a good idea to walk a little active recovery tour which leads us around the Gemünder Maar.

I used the cloud photo to enter the #reflections contest and I'm still amazed by it.
Back in the hotel we took a shower and looked for a restaurant again. This time it should be an Italian restaurant. Also putting our clothes on the heater again, which was a problem. The heater wasn't on the whole time, especially at night when it was turned off.

We got minestrone and bruschetta as pre-dish. Shrimp with squid noodles and garlic and I got spaghetti vongole.

We talked about further plans and checked the weather for the next day. Shocked I saw that there was a thunderstorm warning from 13:00 till 2:00 the next day for complete Germany. No way would we go on a hike in the woods when there is a thunderstorm, strong gusts of wind, and flashes of lightning. We decided to check again the next morning at the breakfast.

Day 3

Still the same result for the weather warning. We were disappointed because we would lose 2 days now for the 4-day hike. We also were still slightly in pain and decided to make a small tour before the thunderstorm arrived. The clothes were dry but the shoes were still damp. We started and wanted to see the nearby tower. We went up there and we could already see the thunderstorm. Looking at the tour plan we had to change it. We would have to walk away from the storm and then come back and walk directly into that storm. So we said walking directly back down would be the best.

I tried to catch the lightning but could not. We saw 2 lightning at the same time from that location. We walked up the tower and saw that the thunderstorm came closer pretty fast. Time to walk back quickly.

And then the rain arrived at us. It rained so hard that we were wet to the bone in seconds. We started to walk faster to avoid the lightning. It was a mess. Back at the hotel, we were dripping wet. Even my jacket was wet and could not hold the water away from my body. The heater was off again but we still put our clothes and shoes on it hoping they turned it on again.

^{Source: Burghof}

In the afternoon the sun was shining and we were pissed. The weather warning wasn't correct for our area. It was not that long. We could have walked later that day and would have sun. But it was too late because the 3rd tour would take around 7 hours and the 2nd tour around 5 hours.
We were looking for another restaurant, and we found the Burghof which looked very promising. From the ambient, it seems the best of the visited ones. I got mushrooms filled with snails and a steak diavolo.

That was very delicious.

Day 4

Not much to say about the 4th day. Our clothes, jacket, and shoes didn't dry overnight and it was raining again. No way would I walk without a jacket when it's raining. I thought that I needed to impregnate my pants, jacket, and shoes when I got home again. Now that I write this, it is already done. So we thought about alternatives to do and came up with a relaxing sauna day. After the 4h sauna, we went home.

Conclusion

It was a disaster but on the other side, we learned a few things when it comes to hiking tours that go over a few days. You have to make sure that you can dry your clothes and shoes. Everything should be waterproof before you go on tour. But we were also prepared. We had lights just in case it would become dark, enough socks and underwear, and power banks for the phone with the tour and tracking app. Even if many things didn't work out as planned, we still had fun and made the best out of it. I was also very happy with the food. Everything we got in the restaurant over the days was good but I liked the Burghof the most for some reason. I would still visit the other restaurants again.

Thanks for reading and I would appreciate a vote and a comment.

Images and screenshots are from me or from the mentioned websites