Germany
Austria
Three caminos in one
Dennis had to sit this one out, so for the second time the brothers were two. Mike's journey in was the usual epic - a 4.5-hour bus, a 6-hour flight and a 3.5-hour train: "Just like magic, I'm in Munich." Nicki met him at Frankfurt airport at 7 in the morning, they rode first class south, and the trip opened the way Munich trips should: a large night at the Hofbräuhaus.
The walk itself was really three walks. Nicki had stitched together three pilgrim trails - the Southeast Bavarian Camino, the Munich Camino and the Tyrol Camino - into one route of about 176 kilometres to Innsbruck, and built the hiking guide himself: long days of 20 to 25 kilometres alternating with short ones under 15, and a village every four to six kilometres "with good food and Bavarian beer." The first day set the tone: 24 kilometres in the rain, with a headache, after the Hofbräuhaus night.
October in the Alps meant weather that changed by the hour - "a true hike in the Alps region, only for cavemen," as Nicki put it, adding the rain plan: "While it rains, we drink beer from twisted horns from pub to pub." Both men started at exactly 100 kilos, carrying packs of barely 8 kilos, and Nicki supplied the trip's motto, an old German saying: "In der Not sind die Dicken dünn und die Dünnen tot" - in times of need, the fat get thin and the thin are dead.
The last day was the biggest of all: 30 kilometres and 910 metres of climbing, down into Innsbruck. A first-class train carried them back to Frankfurt, and two days after he got home Nicki delivered the verdict: "Our hike was sensationally good and spectacular."