This was a “smaller hike” day (in prep for a larger hike tomorrow). We took a bus down the mountain and then a short train ride to Walendstadt. We had a short walk through town to the edge of the lake (Walensee), and we followed a trail up beside the lake and then back down to the lake’s edge for ~4.5 miles.
There was a (rocky) beach there, where we stopped and swam in the lake for a bit (10’ from the edge of the water, the bottom just fell away to some indeterminate depth). The water temperature was pretty ideal—about 70 degrees Fahrenheit, we think—and incredibly clear. Unfortunately, Tim’s waterproof Fitbit proved to not be waterproof, so he is now watch-less until he gets a replacement (which he may try to do in Florence).
After we dried off a bit, we continued for another mile or so to the town of Quentin, which is only accessible by foot and by boat. There were a couple of restaurants there, but not much else, so we hopped on a boat for a trip back across the lake to Unterterzen, where we hit a grocery store and then took the gondola back up to Tannenboden, and then a bus back to Tannenheim to complete our circuit for the day.
We then relaxed for a bit before heading out for a drink at the bar across from our flat (it was drizzling, so no outside seating, and we wound up as the only two people in the bar; we’d stopped by twice yesterday with no luck—first to get food only to find out their kitchen had closed, and later to get a drink only to find out they were closing, as it was just before 8:00). From there, we walked to dinner at a restaurant that our host had said made great pizza. He was right!
An interesting/memorable experience of the day:
Benton: The fact that the weather forecast was showing thunderstorms at 3:00, and the sky was super clear with just a few clouds. It did finally drizzle a bit much later in the day, but the forecasts seem particularly unreliable.
Tim: The cat that kept wandering through the (fairly nice) restaurant where we had dinner.
