Wednesday, 11th of August, 2021.
Sebastian picks me up and he has a caravan trailer attached to his car. For the first time in 4 years of hitchhiking somebody with a caravan trailer stops for me. When I tell him that he seems not to believe that there is a connection. Well, after 4 years (and a half) in 35 different countries, and 3 different continents, I think there is!
We pass through some beautiful landscape of mountains and the black forest. He tells me about this fairy tale of the region, which says that a huge deer was about to be killed but made an unbelievable jump (crossing the canyon where we are driving now, between two massive hills) because it rather to die than to be killed. But the deer made it and the king of the region declared that nobody could ever hunt this dear or the person would be hanged. There is a statue of the deer at the point where it supposedly jumped and Sebastian told me that people climb up there, time to time, and paint it. They even painted with the rainbow colors once =)
Sebastian drops me in an exit and soon enough another guy picks me up. I will call him Cyclist because I cannot remember his name. He is also nice and we talk a little bit before he drop me at the road to the castle, according to him only 20 Km away from there.
The place it is a Parking spot. So I have my lunch (I think one of the best ones I have ever had while travelling like this: different cherry tomatoes, nice bread and wonderful spread given to me by my dear Myriam, cheeses and chips) and start to hitchhike again. In only a few minutes, Ane makes a sign from inside her car that she will park inside. She is eating a lunch from McDonald’s and she tells me she lives at the bottom of the castle, what she means is in the small town called Basingen. She is so cute and try to speak as much English as she can. Ane drops me at the Parking of the castle.
At Hohenzollern castle, I cannot see much around without getting inside and for that I need a ticket. I am almost given up and leaving when I decide to ask the guard (an slightly old man) if I could go quickly to take a photograph, not inside the castle itself, just around. He is very kind and show me in a map where I could go and visit. Super! Even though it is a nice castle, from the inside there is not a super spot where you can get a great photograph.
I decide to hitchhike some where out of the castle, just so I could camp somewhere in the way to Neuschwanstein Castle next day. But an Austrian family pick me up and invite me to spend the night at their house, and next day they would drive me to a hitchhike spot, about one hour from the castle. They even offer to drop me off at the castle, because they are going to their holidays in Austria next day, but they would leave around 17h, so it is too late for me. They have a wonderful house, Martina is quite an artistic person and has a great taste, but they are also very simple people. Her husband is called Renne and I meet only their daughter, Laura (a lovely girl) because they are going to fetch their son in Austria, Ruben. Even though Martina offered me a room, I insist on camping in their garden. They have a lot of space so they have a vegetable garden, some chickens, tortoises, rabbits and Guinea pigs. I drink my beer (as cold as it could be, but by the fridge and not, as Myriam kindly wished I could find, by the cold water of a river) with my dinner. In the morning, Martina prepares some delicious eggs and we eat with some still warm fresh bread from the bakery. When I am all packed, she and Laura drop me in the hitchhiking spot.
