A rebel without a clue.

Ash Wednesday in Flieden means I struggled to find dinner! Until I went into a florist and was instructed up the hill to Gasthaus Zentrum. The pilgerherberge has only a bed and a toilet area so I can't go and self cater. Perhaps the next etape will provide me the opportunity to save money that way? Well I could sit on this tiled room and eat from a can, but I'd like a little humanity to face and not four walls as all I've met all day was Poseidon in his ethereal sphere. Ash Wednesday means no meat, which I think is in accord to what I believe Lent forbids, however for a moment I thought that it was for all 40 days and I really don't eat fish this far from the sea! Really it's not up to me this evening and, as fatigue takes me, I'll just eat whatever then go and crash on the narrow bed! Tomorrow isn't Ash Wednesday and my trial is walking with a backpack pushing 10 kilograms without the addition of snow as it lingers then melts into the sack! And now I'm ...

End of day one, I'm bushed because it's been a fair few months since I had all the weather could throw at me (December) but, thankfully, now I'm safe for the night in a small room which has been provided for one passing pilgrim next to the church office. My shoulder is so sore I'm beginning to feel it was more than a tendon I damaged, however it might just be a very bad sprained ligament? It's time to stop a while, but first I must locate the dripping tap and what can I do about the pain but ride it out? It's a religious holiday being Ash Wednesday so I'm reduced to trying to find any place open for a post walk restorative beer and the only option was Eiscafe bei Franko but the crap pop music drove me out after one really average Franziskaner Dunkel. It was a very very ordinary place and just must be the same owners as the kebap shop it's next to? I think the central Gasthaus opens at five? After a hasty, frigid, walk around the town centre I...

Posh breakfast. No conversation. There never is. How often do I despair in this environment. However there are no pilgerherbergen in a town where the pilgerweg begins. Or there is but I didn't speak directly to the association in Fulda diocese. Earlier, looking out from my rooftop cell, facing south, I saw that there was a little snow on the pantiled roofs below the monastery. In the distance cars pass on a road and further the pastel shades merge with the bare trees blowing in a subtle breeze. At seven I am packed and it is time for breakfast. It's too much! I'm guided by the maître to the toilet perhaps in case I stray into the cloister proper and never come out again? So day one begins and I'm having real trouble with eating excellent, but crusty, German bröt. Without front teeth I'm left with cutting the slice into smaller pieces I can push towards my mollars and masticate. It's impossible to rip or tear anything. I think it's time to ablute ...