Hiking from Linz to Bad Hönningen

The new year started, and with this first hike of the year, it feels that the new year really started. This time the hike was organized by Davy. I don’t know if it was related to him, the temperature, or because it was simply too early to start today, but there were less than 10 people signing up today. It was a pity because it was a nice area along the Rhine. It was part of the Rheinsteig, which goes from somewhere around Mainz to Bonn. So today we were walking on the edge of the trail.

The city where we started, Linz, is a typical German city of this area. It’s a kind of city that you would expect in Central Europe, but in Germany it’s rarely seen in big cities, because they were mostly reconstructed after the war. I really love these small cities along the Rhine in this area because you can find still find these traditional buildings.

It was super foggy when we started hiking, but then the weather got really good as we started the day. Had we started one hour later, we could have probably also taken beautiful pictures of the city of Linz as well.

And so for the fog we could also not take nice pictures on top of the hills. That was really a pity because we were going up a hill right after we started hiking. So in principle we should have had a nice view over the Rhine.

It’s somehow super cold this week: the temperature has been around zero all the time. There was snow and ice along the way. A great thing about the sub-zero degrees is that the air gets dry, so that it feels somewhat more refreshing. On such a sunny day, it felt even better.

And for this low temperature, the track was very solid. I was carrying my hiking shoes, but I could have managed it probably with any shoes.

Before the break, there were multiple points where we could have a nice view over the area. Unfortunately the sun was coming from the wrong side, so we couldn’t take beautiful photos, but at least we got our group photo there.

There was also a castle along the way, in the middle of a vineyard. That’s another great thing around this area. Especially, you can also find a lot of medieval castles on top of hills.

We had a silent break in the middle of a beautiful field. Everything was wet – I should have taken my camping chair.

We wanted to have a coffee/ice cream in Bad Hönningen, but unfortunately all the cafés were either closed or full, so we directly took a train back home. It was only 5 pm when we arrived in Düsseldorf. I didn’t really know what to do. I really think that we could have started one hour later today, in order to have more relaxed time in the morning. Anyway.