This morning I walked outside the city wall and headed northwest. As I hiked across the countryside, I started feeling a bit like Bilbo Baggins. No particular plan other than getting to my next destination - Bacharach, which is along the Rhine River. After walking for about five miles, I decided to give hitch hiking in Germany a shot.
So I held up my "Weikersheim, Bitte" sign and started thumbing. I quickly managed two rides (one from a woman named Anita and another from a woman named Eva) where I was challenged to speak a little bit of German. I then hopped on a local bus for the remaining few miles to Weikersheim, where I was able to find a train station.
I took a train to Lauda and while waiting for my next train (to Wurzberg), I struck up a conversation with a German girl named Christina. I'm constantly amazed at how helpful and friendly people are in this country. Christina, who spoke a little bit of English, was helping me decipher one of the loudspeaker bulletins (which said our train would be 40 minutes late).
We continued our conversation on the train when it finally arrived and then over coffee at the train station in Wurzberg. I learned that she was a student in both forestry and art, and her dream was to go to the Yukon Territory in Canada for six months (in a forestry program they have there). As we both had to catch trains to separate destinations at this point, I thanked Christina for her help and said goodbye. I then traveled to Mainz, stitching on my Japan patch on the train (I'm about a year behind with some of these patches). After switching trains again, I finally arrived in Bacharach a little after dark.
My final task of the day was to find the path to the Castle Youth Hostel at the top of a hill overlooking the Rhine. After using some broken German with the locals, I managed to find the path. Another traveler from Japan named Mihoku joined me, as she was trying to find the same place. She was actually quite lucky to bump into me, because she had no flashlight and the only way to the castle was through a series of switchbacks up a muddy trail through the dark (thanks for the headlamp, Sven & Des!).
Luckily they had plenty of space left (and we arrived before the castle gates closed at 10 pm). I checked into my room and drank a glass of wine while overlooking the river (fantastic panoramic view) before going to sleep.
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