“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.”Anthony Bourdain
I love snow and I’m always looking forward to it in the winter despite the fact that I live in uk, and anything more than a feet of snow changes the country into a post war zone.
The night before my flight the weather blessed us with that magical white fluff and oh boy. I wasn’t too worried about the flight because I was sure they will keep the tarmac at the airport in good condition but uk roads? Now that’s a different story.
I always leave a bit of extra time when travelling to the airport as I believe “better safe than sorry”. The road in front of my house was covered in snow and I knew the taxi will get stuck there so I called the company and changed the location. That meant I now had to leave the house even earlier and walk in the middle of the night to a main road. Oh well….anything in the name of travel:)
Surprisingly journey to the airport took only about 10mins longer than normally with National express. Not too bad. However weather in Cologne was much worse and my flight was delayed by 3 hours. At this point I was contemplating going back to bed and just claim my money back. The traveller’s soul won tho. And I was rewarded for my patience:
And empty row to myself always feels like a jackpot! Normally I would try to lie across all three seats and catch some sleep but the flight was only an hour.
Snow! How exciting!
The journey from Cologne airport took 35 mins by intercity. Located about 65km from Cologne this place with 14 nature parks is a paradise for any nature lover.
Because now I had 3 hrs less to explore and I only slept like 2.5hrs I knew I will have to compromise.
This is the route I did:
ASBERGER SEE
The first part of the trail starts at the end of Auf der Helte road.
In Germany the trail will quite often be marked on trees and will either have a symbol or letters.
Here additional info was placed on special rocks:
Occasionally there will also be a signpost:
But that’s only when you come to a crossroads. Also there will be huts or boards with a location number so if you have to call an emergency number, it will be easier for them to locate you.
Why isn’t that a standard procedure everywhere on a trail??
Most of the walk leads through a beautiful forest:
Even tho I was constantly climbing, the walk wasn’t too challenging. It was only on the way back that I get to see my elevation.
I yet to learn to recognise wild animal footprints except for the basic deer one.
I was praying this was just a very big dog…🤭 I couldn’t find many information about what kind of animals occupy those beautiful forests and I didn’t see any warnings either. Apparently there are some wild cats 😲
I only saw woodpeckers, red squirrel and an owl.
One the way I came across lots of small rangers huts. Most of them were locked up but I found one that was open.
Of course I climbed the tiny ladder and had a peak inside.
I absolutely loved the fact that some kind and loving soul left a pack of hand warmers in there.
The Asberger See looks more like a like lake tbh. As you can guess it was frozen and I made it a little bit too late during the day and the sun was already too low.
Now I want to visit this place in every season just to see which one makes it more beautiful:)
I stumbled onto the most beautiful forest too. Just by looking at that pic you can guess what destination is on my bucket list:
I totally recommend you will pass through a suburb called Breite Heide. Some of the houses there are just spectacular.
The last part of this trail lead me to a place called Koppel. It was a view point marked by a big metallic cross:
And from there you can see a stunning view of Bad Honnef.
Bad Honnef it’s a small spa town with tiny roads and an old fashioned buildings that will make you think you just travelled in time.
I didn’t have my hiking poles with me which I regretted constantly. It was mostly due to the mud and slush rather than the terrain tho.
I was super hungry after the hike and in my search for a good place to eat I stumbled upon this restaurant:
I can totally recommend it. The food was cheap and delicious and the service fantastic!
Trekking Sparrow 