Thursday 30 May

Had an unpleasant experience after breakfast when the bits of fat in the salami I had just eaten decided to climb back up and lodge in my throat. It didn't block my breathing, but I was coughing quite badly and rather scared until I worked out what was going on. I took a tablet to calm down, and it all worked itself out eventually. 

Left the apartment to catch the U-Bahn and then a train to Gauting. It must have been a holiday because there was no sign of anyone going to work, and the trains were few and far between. Also -- as I discovered later -- all the shops were closed. Luckily I had bought milk yesterday, but if I hadn't I would have been stuck, for the second time in a week.

I didn't have too long to wait till the DB train arrived, and it was about a half-hour trip, first east and then south, on a nearly deserted train. Gauting is a picturesque little town, slightly touristy and vaguely Alpine in its feel; but there were long queues at the only two open coffee shops, so I had to go without.

I set off on the very popular bike track that follows the river Wurm to the south. Walked past an outdoor sports and recreation area, and then into the woods which border the river, No deer this time, just a squirrel or two. But the walk was scenic, and apart from the road noises on the other side of the river,  I could have been in the middle of the Black Forest. About halfway there was a decision point; go right and direct to Sternberg, or take a longer route through Leutstetten and a Moos -- which I worked out later meant 'marsh'. I opted for the longer route and found myself walking behind a couple of ambling horses for a while. They led me arond the edge of a wheatfield and to something called the Villa Rustica, which turned out to be a glass structure protecting an architectural dig in the remains of a tiny Roman house. The marsh itself ran alongside the path much of the way, though at one point I had to cross it on a boardwalk.

Back into the woods again, with cyclists whizzing past every couple of hundred metres emerging eventually at the main road into Starnberg. Here I had coffee in a petrol station and then dodged into the suburbs for a little while until I emerged in the main shopping street. I was tempted by a little wine festival going on in a plaza, with food stalls, but I went instead to a pizza restaurant and had a Romana pizza with a a glass of the local beer, which was very good.

Starnberg is on the shores of a big lake, but you wouldn't know it until you go under the railway line, when suddenly you're in an entirely different place, full of festive cafes and boating activities. I could have taken a pleasure cruise, but the boat had just left, so I decided to keep going to the next town on the rail line.

This was less pleasant, much of it being along a busy road. First the bike path ran out, then the pavement ran out, so I was walking along the grass verge. Access to the lake shore was closed of by private properties. But about halfway it became public again and I was able to follow the lake through a popular recreation area. Round towers began popping up along the way, and I eventually worked out they had been part of the wall of the local schloss, which still stands although the wall is down. I walked up past it towards the station: it was OK, but no great schloss.

Waited ten minutes for the train to Munich and then caught the U-Bahn home. Quite exhausted, possibly from the effects of the tablet; but I must have walked at least 14 km. And so to bed.

No particular plans for today -- I'll probably explore the Englishcher Gartens in town.

Love, Jon.