We woke early after a chilly night tent camping. It was fine in the tent in the sleeping bag, but the air was cold nonetheless. The beautiful church I mentioned had a bell tower that chimed every quarter hour.  We had a disturbed sleep but still woke up at 5:30am. Why wake up so early?? Well there is really no reason except for habit. We had a medium length hike planned and didn’t need to get to Bad Waldsee before 2 or 4pm anyway. But a habit is a habit.

We packed our dew drenched tents and snuck out at the crack of dawn, walking by 6:20. The sunrise was spectacular!

The day started with a short bit of street walking and a morning update.

But we soon turned a corner into a path running through thick grass. Remember the dew-drenched tents I mentioned? When we turned that corner we all let out a collective soft groan. The grass of course was also wet as well and soon we were sloshing about in our shoes.

It was like that for a good bit of the morning as we transitioned from dry forest paths and wet fields of grass. Honestly, since your socks and shoes can only get so wet, it wasn’t too awful after the first course.

The fields rolled across the country allowing us short vistas of the countryside. Once when looking west, I caught the first glimpse of something odd on the horizon – The Alps.

Our destination for the day was Bad Waldsee. A town with “Bad” at the beginning indicates it has (or had) thermal baths at one point. “Waldsee” is formed from two words meaning “woods” and “lake”.

Some of you have read our travel notes located in the menu of the VLOG. Our friend Cindy contributed to this section of the Travel Notes and I’m sure with her surname of Wald, she enjoyed researching this town.

A speciality in this region is spaetzle. From the descriptions online it is a pasta that is made with eggs and butter. Hard to go wrong with butter. Then you can add savory spices and sauces or sweet ones. I was blessed enough to have a homemade beef and mushroom spaetzle a few years ago prepared by an Italian German. I literally licked my plate clean.

There is even a museum in town dedicated to spaetzle. Well, I should say there “was” one. It is not permanently closed – bummer.

After a bit of confusion checking into our apartment we did some grocery shopping and came back “home” to create a feast.

We have a kitchen tonight and get to cook our own dinner. That may sound boring to most of you, but it is a true treat on a Camino-type hike in Europe. We are feasting on vegetables and chicken. Please; no judging us on the ice cream as dessert. We are always hungry.

While Mark and Allison grocery shopped, I did some exploring on my own around the town center. The city colors of Bad Waldsee are black and silver (sometimes shown in white).

The fish to the left of the arms stands for the fishing from the city’s lakes. The star over the arms symbolizes the city’s devotion to the Virgin Mary, who is venerated at the mountain chapel “Our Dear Lady of the Mountain.” An oar, sometimes interpreted as a grain shovel, on the right of the crest highlights the fishing and/or farming in the area.