Sunday, we were raring to start our trek, so we strapped on our packs and started out fairly early. Our goal was Carrara, where we had booked at a B&B.
This part of Italy is serious marble country; some of the best marble in the world is from Carrara. As we walked, we could see the white marble veins in the mountains where it is quarried.
The walk went well, partly along a canal
and partly in the hills.
Pilgrims are common here; at one point there was a notebook on a gate asking pilgrims where they are from and where they are going.
This is very late in the season, though, and we didn’t see any fellow travelers on Sunday. There are lots during the summer, though, and the Via Francigena is well marked, mostly with little white and red stickers.
A few kilometers out of Carrara we passed by a winery which looked very nice. Feeling we should not neglect our study of Italian culture, we stopped in for a quick visit. One part of the winery was doing a booming business filling jugs and other containers for the locals, directly from very large wood barrels. Another part was devoted to providing tastings, and purchases, of their higher end wines. Since we had a few kilometers to go before we slept, we only tasted two wines, both of which were outstanding.
Our first adventure of this year’s walk occurred later that afternoon when we found that there was no posted “Via Toniolo 8 bis”, the address where the B&B was supposed to be. There was a “Via Toniolo 8” which was a small apartment building but it had no reference on the list of apartments to the B&B or its owner. We called the B&B but got a recording. We left a message, but got no reply. After a while, we tried again, with the same result.
It was a Sunday afternoon, so pretty much everything was closed. We went to Plan B, which is to go to the train station if one is nearby (which was the case). In Italy, there is a reasonable chance of finding a bar open at the station, even on Sunday night, and, if all else fails, you can catch a train and go somewhere else.
At the station, as hoped, we found an open bar, where we took off our packs and sat down with a glass of wine. We called the B&B again, got the recording, and left another message.
We called booking.com, and they said they would try to contact the B&B. About 20 minutes later the B&B called, apologized for not responding sooner, and agreed to have someone meet us at Via Toniolo 8. It turned out that 8 bis is not marked, and to get there you go through a break in a gate, cross a parking area, and find a house.
Once we were in, the B&B was pretty nice. We showered, put on clean clothes, and found the nearby Locanda dei Pellegrini, which was open (there were no pellegrini, or pilgrims, but lots of Italian men watching a soccer match), had another glass of wine, and reminisced on how often what seemed like crises on the road, had worked out just fine.
and Omas Marlena and Gunna kept right up.
Sadly, Wolfgang was not able to walk the entire way; he felt that his obligations as beer and sandwich provider required him to drive, much as he would have preferred to walk. He was heart broken 😉, but did his duty. Being the loving and dutiful daughter she is, Lena’s sister, Lilly, rode in the car with Wolfgang so that he would not suffer alone. Between them, they kept us all well supplied!
and we arrived at the end of the Rennsteig (or the beginning, depending on which way you are walking)
in great spirits.
Unfortunately, the boiler at the hotel was broken and there was no heat, but, fortunately, Wolfgang had his laptop and played a video of a fire,
which was fun, if not actually warming!
we boarded our train
at what was literally the end of the line.
Briefly, it appeared that we would have to restrain Uli from making an unscheduled exit from the train,
but it turned out she was just demonstrating how the windows worked in our compartment.
with Uncle Volker and Opa Dieter teaching us the finer points.
in a beautiful outdoor beer garden at a lake near our hotel.
but Leslie Ruth had no dirndle, and Karl lacked leather pants; there was no room in our packs for these items, even if we owned them. (Maybe next time?) On Sunday morning, we all set off to do Octoberfest, the famous Munich fall festival.
beer companies
a sort of May Pole
and dozens (surely over 50) mostly brass bands
each with a large drum section.There we’ve grown men playing patty cake or something
and groups representing many other countries.
It went on for hours.
where the serious part of Octoberfest (drinking beer) is centered. Ignoring the amazing rides of every sort
we got right down to business and chose an enormous beer garden which was in a tent.
Those Germans really know how to drink beer and eat pretzels!
The beer came in very large one liter mugs 
which was played an hour’s train ride from Munich because Lena’s cousin plays on the team, and the family ethic is to show up and support anyone in the family who is playing a sport or singing or playing an instrument in a performance. What a fantastic family! With the added bonus of attending the Octoberfest parade and going to an Octoberfest beer hall,
it was a special visit for us indeed. 
and although we had not talked in ages, she thought to text Leslie to find out if Leslie and Karl happened to be in Italy. We are so glad she did! We met Angela upon her arrival at the Siena train station, after the Florence wedding, and treated her to a trip on the seven amazing escalators that run from the station up to the old city center where we live. Angela did some sightseeing while we were in school the next morning with a local guide (Paolo) we found (who asked Angela to call him Uncle Paul 🙂) Angela was a quick study. She told us things we did not know about Siena monuments that she had learned on her guided tour. Angela also got right into the spirit of things by spending time with us at Bar Manganelli on the magnificent Piazza del Campo and dining with us at La Taverna San Giuseppe. It was so nice to be with Angela.
Last but not least, we spent a great two weeks catching up with Karl’s sister Jane and our brother-in-law Jim from Alaska.
We overlapped our time at school by two weeks, and spent 6 days of that in class together. The four of us even managed to do a very creditable job speaking Italian together. We laughed at ourselves and apologized for being grammar nerds
as we drifted into discussing the finer points of Italian grammar while we were at our apartment or having drinks at Bar Manganelli with Angela. Leslie had never had a chance to spend so much quality personal time with Jane and Jim, and it was wonderful to get to know each other even better than before. 
We’re very comfortable in the two apartments we have used, and have our favorite restaurants and bars.
It was wonderful catching up with sister Jane, brother in law Jim,
and cousin Angela.
We’ve made many friends in Siena, and run into them on the streets. Each time we visit, we discover something new (this month it was the public gardens below the old city, just inside the wall) but mostly we enjoy the comfort of knowing the city pretty well and doing things we’ve done before.
to see what adventure awaits us today.
(more posts on that shortly) we returned to Siena and Italian language school.
Our sister Jane and brother in law Jim, were there
and we had a wonderful time catching up with them (also more posts on that to come, for sure).
Although this is low season, the town was quite lively. We had many choices for our aperitivo, and selected a bar which seemed to have only Italian speakers. We had a few glasses of Vermentino, the local white, and watched the tourists (Italian) and the locals in our bar. We then turned in early, to rest up for our trek.
The owner of the hotel also ran the local bakery, so there were plenty of rolls and pastries.
The Rennsteig is a very old trail; stone trail markers dating back to 1513 still show the way. Today, modern markers guide the trekker.
Unfortunately, the Cold War prevented its use as it runs along a ridge which repeatedly crosses what was once the boarder between West Germany, the Federal Republic of Germany and East Germany, the German Democratic Republic. The wall and fence erected by East Germany to keep East Germans from leaving, was fortified, guarded
and mined, which certainly would have discouraged trekkers! Today, the Rennsteig is open again, but there are signs warning of possible land mines is some sections.
You can still see the roadway built to allow East Germany to move troops quickly along the border.
Lilly and Max might have kept up with Dieter except for their stops to talk to any animals we came across.
Or to climb hunting stands
and enjoy the view.
we set off with Dieter. Boy did he give us a run for our money! Not only did he maintain a pace which really tested us, he was quite comfortable conversing with us on many subjects in his very passable English. We learned a lot about him. His father was a (Lutheran?) priest whose name ended in “sky” or “ski”. Although he was German, the name was determined by Hitler (or his henchmen) to be Russian or Polish or the such, which would disqualify his children from going to University. His father managed to change the name to Wolter, which was acceptably German. (It was a little unclear to us, but Dieter may have said that his father, as the local priest, was able to make appropriate changes to baptism records to accomplish this.)
as is his ability to engage with every person he encounters and converse on many subjects.
Karl’s dinner, schweineschnitzel
was also very large, but he finessed the dumpling issue by ordering it with potato salad!
All 12 of us were in good spirits and looked forward to our adventure.
Pretty soon, we came to a Rennsteig mile marker (kilometer marker?) showing that we had 51 Kilometers (a little over 50 miles) to go.
After a kilometer or so, we left the town and entered the forest.
For the rest of the day, we walked through forests and meadows, often with outstanding views.
We stopped for occasional breaks
and, course, group photos.
We finished in Oberland am Rennsteig, where we studied German beer, and other beverages
while waiting for the taxis to the hotel in Steinbach. Apparently, no hotel actually on the Rennsteig had room available for a group our size, so Lena booked us two nights at a hotel in Steinbach, a days walk down the Rennsteig, and arranged for taxis to take us there (and return us to Oberland am Rennsteig in the morning). Wolfgang and Dieter (“Opa” as he is lovingly known in the family) drove to Neuhaus, so the same taxis took them back to Neuhaus to pick up the cars.
Each glass arrived with just the right head.
Not wanting to insult the restaurant, she finished it all.
Karl manfully ate his very large portion of sauerbraten, but felt inadequate when he could only eat one of his two dumplings. Maybe with more practice?
What a group it is; three generations of Lena’s family. Edward, Lena, one of Lena’s brothers, Max, and her sister, Lilly, made up the youngest generation. Leslie Ruth, Karl, Lena’s parents, Wolfgang and Uli, and Wolfgang’s brother, Volker, made up the middle generation. Uli’s parents, Gunne (age 81), Dieter (83) and Wolfgang’s mother, Marlene (85) made up the oldest generation. They all graciously helped Leslie Ruth and Karl learn about German food and beer.
ITALY, GERMANY, AND MORE! 