Europe Trip Post 9: Bavarian Forest, Wurzen and German Train Travel

I guess I should start this post with an apology to you, my readers – it has been two weeks between posts, and I can’t help but feel guilty! There’s good reason for this though – we’ve been busy, enjoying some adventures off the normal tourist track. Today is day 50 of our European adventure (we have reached this milestone astonishingly quickly), and I’m writing this post on a train from Munich to Garmisch-Pankenkirtchen (a ski-town in southern Bavaria).

My current obsession is without a doubt the German train system – I know I’ve written about it before, but it is just so, so good! For a single 50 Euro (roughly $80 AUD) Deutschland Ticket each, we have travelled an astonishing number of kilometres and hours in January – both on local city/metro-trains and longer distance regional trains – all in comfortable train seats with great views of the beautiful German countryside. Sure, you have to change trains occasionally, but the connections almost always line up, and in most cases the travel duration is comparable with car travel. I just can’t recommend it enough – I mean, have a look at this view out the train as I write:

So! To make up for lost time, this blog post will cover our distinctly different adventures in Wurzen and the Bavarian Forest over the last two weeks

Wurzen: Workaway-ing in the Kanthaus

After a brief one night layover in Prague (alas, didn’t make it outside the hotel room this time), we made our way to the small German town of Wurzen, located 20 minutes from the much larger town of Leipzig. There’s not a lot to say about Wurzen – local population 20,000, it has the obligatory church and castle that seems to be a pre-requisite of being a German town, but apart from that it is pretty unremarkable. Located in Saxony region and surrounded by farmland, it was part of East Germany before the wall fell, and apparently the population of the town halved shortly after due to people moving to the West. Thankfully, a very notable exception to this lack of remarkable features is the Kanthaus. We found the Kanthaus on Workaway a while ago, and were intrigued by the idea of “functional living” – the idea that resources and spaces can be shared and used more effectively – so we got in touch and lined up a stay.

We stayed just over a week and a half in the Kanthaus, and really enjoyed talking to the different people living or visiting there, playing with the two children who also live there (and don’t speak English, adding an extra layer of confusion and fun), cooking using dumpster-dived or foodsharing-acquired food, helping in the Kanthaus freeshop (like an op-shop, except the price tag of everything is free!) and playing board games with our new friends. The house was built by a group of like-minded individuals in 2017, and actually consists of two over 100 year old, neighbouring 3-floor apartment buildings that have been converted, renovated and merged over time (an ongoing project) to support multiple people living there (anywhere from 5 to 20 at a time apparently – was mostly at the lower end for our stay there). Everything there is focused on functional living – most food, clothes and technology in the Kanthaus there can and are used by any of the residents. Most of the concepts that seemed challenging initially actually felt very normal in practice (eating dumpster-dived food, communal clothes, sharing a house space with multiple different adults and two children). The most challenging idea for us is that no one had their own bedroom – some were private, others shared bunkrooms, but all had to be booked on a night by night basis. This was great for us as visitors, but something I think I would struggle with over long periods of time – I admire the idea and logic behind it (bedrooms as functional spaces) but there’s something about having your own island/private space that you can retreat to that feels almost essential as humans. It was interesting to note that the parents and kids effectively had their own room in the house – so clearly the house has recognized the limitations of this approach for that age group.

Overall it was an incredibly worthwhile experience, and it has left me with a lot of musings on how we can use space and housing more efficiently in Australia – and build better communities in the process.

While staying in the Kanthaus we did visit Leipzig on a couple of occasions, and did a little bit of touristing:

Museum in der “Runden Ecke” / Stasi Museum

This was a really interesting museum – a chilling reminder of just how much spying East Germany/the Stasi did on their own citizens, what the implications could be for those deemed treacherous, and ultimately, just how recently this all occurred. A great little museum, with some crazy displays (the spy briefcase with an embedded camera in the side was particularly cool – thought these were only a movie thing).

Wildpark Leipzig

One afternoon we made a last minute decision to visit the Wildpark, and made it there just before close. Somewhere between a zoo and a parkland, this area was on the outskirts of Leipzig. Turns out in winter most animals are largely in hiding, but we did catch some deer and a rather sad looking caged owl.

Train Strikes

On the day we left Wurzen, it was the midst of a 6 day German train drivers strike. It is a big disagreement about the usual – wages and work hours – but the end result was a massive disruption to Germany’s critical transport. We resigned ourselves to getting stuck somewhere half-way and set off early in the morning, but remarkably, even German trains during strikes still run more regularly than V-Line trains! It involved many interesting connections and fun changes in random locations, but we made it to our destination.

Bavarian Forest adventures

In contrast to our time in the Kanthaus, our time in the Bavarian Forest was spent more outdoors than in. We stayed with a university colleague of Charlotte’s, who is an Australian that has been living in Bavaria for the last two years. He lives on the edge of the Nationalpark Bayerischer Wald – one of Germany’s relatively few national parks, located right on the German border with the Czech Republic. We crammed in 3 adventures during our 4 nights staying there, each of which was located in a different area of the national park.

Hiking the Grosse Falkenstein

We spent a challenging but fun day hiking our way up and down the Grosse Falkenstein – a forest mountain that is well worth the effort. We spent a lot of the first half of the hike moving rather slowly uphill, avoiding patches of slippery ice on the trail and then some rather deep snow. Thankfully, we were rewarded with an excellent lunch in the restaurant at the top of the mountain – an incredible plate of Wild Deer/Venison Goulash, apparently collected from within the park. They do National Parks a little differently over here…

Nordic Skiing at Mauth-Finsterau

I’d never been Nordic skiing before, so we hired some skis and headed up the mountain. Conditions were challenging – I immediately fell over several times on extremely icy patches – but we headed up the mountain a little and found a beautiful path through the forest. Nordic Skiing uses really skinny skis with some ridges in the bottom to give some grip for uphill, and skiers follow little grooves in the snow – kind of like train tracks. The video below is probably more helpful to explain it – I like to think I got the hang of it pretty quickly!

Sledding Lusen

A couple of hours dragging a sled up an icy mountain is hard work. But thankfully, the payoff was well and truly worth it. Firstly, an amazing view over much of the park and the lower country below, secondly, another incredible mountain top meal (and drink) from a rustic mountain hut (food seems to get tastier in higher altitudes – not sure if it is the Bavarian cooking, the appetite from the exercise and cold air, or some other magic ingredient), then finally, an absolutely insane descent on sleds – or in my case, a toboggan that I believe was really intended for children. I can’t really describe it – so instead, here’s another video. Pure, insane, probably quite dangerous fun.

After spending so much time in the cities and towns of Germany, I was having trouble imagining living here on a longer-term basis – this has definitely changed after our time in Bavaria. The mountains are simply beautiful – views vary between picturesque or spectacular – no other options. The locals have a huge range of outdoor adventure options, many of which are free once they have purchased the gear, and they take advantage of it, getting outdoors all the time. I’m told it is beautiful up here in spring/summer too… might just have to come back

So, where to next? More mountains, bigger mountains and more outdoor adventures, this time in southern Bavaria. Can’t wait!

Next destinations: Mittenwald, Neuschwanstein Castle, Munich