Farmer's Walk - Rhupolding, Bavaria

Following a relaxing first day, we kicked off our holiday with a Thomsons guided walk called the Farmer's Walk, which picked us up at the bus station and dropped us at Lake Weitsee about 10 miles out.  There was approximately 15 of us on the walk of varying abilities but we were able to go at our own pace most of the time, stopping every 15 minutes for the more slower members to catch up and take a water break.

We followed a well made path through Rothelmoos, which we were told was a nature reserve, and we then came out onto some common grazing ground where there were approximately 100 cattle - some with their cow bells clunking.

We went onwards to our first destination - the Dandl Alm - where we were stopping for lunch.  We were served a lovely meat and cheese platter and selected our drinks from a trough which was full of bottles of various beverage.

The views on the walk to this stage were inspiring - with sheer cliff on one side dropping down to crystal clear water and there were many paths snaking off to various different routes that we thought we might try another day.

After lunch we carried on with the walk to reach Fairy Tale Woods and we were told that the woods were created by a significant landslip 700 years ago and the trees have grown around, and on top off,  the massive boulders deposited by the slip.  It was early on in the woods I spotted a grass snake which had just eaten dinner and it put one or two people off venturing further in!  There were butterflies and dragonflies but surprisingly no birds.

The 8 miles walk took the group about 5 hours to complete - relatively slow by our standards but enjoyable none the less and a good introduction to the scenes of the area and to the other holiday makers.