water castle

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This post is about a 21km walk from the Inn riverside to Viehhausen. I walk through Wasserburg am Inn and feel a weird sense of pressure.

I woke up a few times during the night because it rained. Each time it was only a light drizzle, and I was safe in my bivouac sack. But it was still enough to bother me in my sleep. Like a tiny drum beating on my head.

pre-alpine

When I got up and put my pants on, I heard the sound of a lot of people coming my way. They arrived just as I was brushing my teeth: several dozen kids with their teachers. They look like middle schoolers on an excursion. “Hihi”, made the middle schoolers as they were walking past me: “hihi, haha!”

I stayed on the forest path all morning. It left the river and went up and up until I found myself in a landscape of green hills dotted with farm houses. Alpine was a word that came to mind. Or rather: pre-alpine.

water castle

A few hours later, I was back at the river. Only I was high above it in a place where I could overview the medieval town of Wasserburg am Inn. The name literally meant water castle, and it sat there, huddled on a peninsula in a bend of the river Inn. I got out my camping chair and rested there for a while, eating bread with mushroom spread and bell peppers, drinking tea, looking at the town that was a water castle.

It reminded me of the graphics of a computer game. Something like Age Of Empires or Civilization.

the pressure

When I eventually got down to Wasserburg town itself, it made me a bit tired though. There was a sense of pressure in the air. Maybe it was because of the high building density, the narrowness of the streets, or because Wasserburg was in a valley, enclosed by hills that seemed to be pressing on it.

I didn’t stay for dinner. Instead, I stopped at an Bosnian-run Italian restaurant and got a veggie pizza and a coke.

pictures

the walk from the Inn riverside to Viehhausen:

underpass in the forest

forest road near Dirnberg

fields near Dirnberg

Jesus in a forest

forest road

Alfred in front of his family’s restaurant

I sit atop Wasserburg.

Wasserburg from above

enter Wasserburg

inside the old town of Wasserburg

street festival decorations in Wasserburg

sometimes Wasserburg looks like this

Meggle butter factory