A rebel without a clue.

Strange end to the day. After arriving in Höchst I went to the St Justinus kirch just as it was closing and I got a stamp for my Credencial, but when I asked for a place to stay: blank faces and in Germany a blank face doesn't have a nanosecond of emotion. They really didn't care less that I'd just walked 25 kilometres from Mike and Steffi's and came expecting something of someone, in one of the oldest churches on Germany, to care I was on the Pilgerweg and actually help me along! Unreal. The modern world is populated by people who haven't any character and Germany just seems to follow suit! Difficult days ask me difficult questions. Is this because Germany is driven by memories of the past - and I'm British - or because they are rampant capitalists who don't realise what a struggle the Weg/Way/Camino is?

Really I need to start the Jakobsweg again and now, with fresh legs after a hot soak last night, I decided walking from Mike and Steffi's home near Bad Vilbel using the many other "Wegs" radiating across Germany.  I can come to Höchst, connect back up with the route out from Frankfurt towards Trier and hopefully find a place to sleep. Yesterday was a long tiring day, but it was definitely worth not walking the Jakobsweg. With a worsening hangover i reached Frankfurt Süd bahnhof around eight thirty from Gelnhausen. Found an Backer Effeler and ate scrambled eggs while fighting off cold sweats: Apfelwein is lethal. Met the people who organise the pilgerweg for Hessen (as well as elsewhere in Germany) in Niederad, at the Vamonos 2020 Pilgerbörse, and collected a little more information about places to sleep after Bingen and a stamp for my Credential. Feeling much worse around noon I caught the number 12 tram to meet Mike, Werner and the Arabian horse Jenny. On rou...

Day three begins in another Happ. At 5:30 I was very much awake as the church bell rang in the hours. By six it added back the quarter chimes too. It is not such a bad thing: I've got quite used to the quarter and hourly chimes from so many years sleeping in and around monasteries, churches, abbeys and cathedrals. Last night I discovered that there is a special pilgrim gathering in Frankfurt and I was invited by the main organiser for the Jakobus Hessen association in Salmünster which suggests I won't be walking on Saturday - unless I get to within Frankfurt suburbia by lunchtime tomorrow.  On Sunday there is also a concert in the same venue, which is part of this weekend's gathering, but I was hoping to be leaving Frankfurt for Mainz then. I'm obviously in a little quandary. The coincidence of the meeting these folk in the local Brauhaus last night and all possibilities envisioned by meeting other pilgrims and pilgrim hosts tomorrow means I may have to hang...

Beechwood valley to my left and the distant sounds of a couple of trains as I come down from the snowbound hills above Schlüchtern. In to the town through an industrial sector and then I looked for a café to rest before the next part of the day. After I'd spotted one then walked around the centre I headed back to the first at it suggests relaxation! Wohenzimmer café for oolong and a free croissant. Truly too many instances of déjà vu. Just now as I turn left and see end of today's etape I am instantly back in Saint Bertrand de Comminges in the Pyrenees. It is the Weg/Chemin but that's nearly in Spain! But that didn't work. No where to stay. It's not a Catholic town ... and almost the same thing happened in St Bertrand because the gîte d'étape was a chambre d'hôtes. The thing with German Jakobsweg seems to be that there is a huge disconnect with its deeper meaning. In a hugely capitalist nation there seems little time for what I am trying to do. O...

That was one damp night's sleep. At 5am I had to get off the bottom sheet and decided I'd try my luck above the duvet, but below the blanket. Now I'm ready for my Geniesser Happen Frühstück(€6.50) in Bäcker Happ after seven and I don't think I'm crawling with bites from the blanket...today is a mere 21 kilometres to Steinau an der Straße. It's a big German breakfast at Happ, but three huge crusty brötchen which I cannot bite anymore without cutting into petite morsels and I've discovered the reason for a knife and folk! When you have bad or missing teeth they do the job for you! For how many millennium did humans suffer to eat tough, sharpe, crisp, crusty without a knife and a folk then some clever soul decided they no longer needed teeth but utensils? Day two begins shortly and it's neither raining nor snowing, there are some fast moving clouds heading eastwards so the conveyor belt will keep it forever changing and meeting me on the path?

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...