Schluchsee – A 4.5-hour walk

My birthday is in March. This year, my birthday fell on a weekday. (Actually, for most years, my birthday falls on a weekday 😂). But this year is more special because it fell exactly in the middle of the week – Wednesday. If it had been on Friday, it would have been great, because then I could have taken leave on my birthday. Long story short, I did work on my birthday, which was on a Wednesday, and took leave on Friday that week 🤣.

To celebrate my birthday, my husband and I decided to go to Schluchsee (which was actually because of a little driving force from my side – just a little – haha 🤣). We booked a two-night stay in Schluchsee. On that Friday, we drove from our place to Schluchsee. Just to give you a short background, we live in what’s considered a ‘city’ where if you walk a bit, you’ll find all sorts of entertainment like shopping malls, swimming pools (Freibad), thermal spa (Thermalbad), and so on. The reason why we live in a more urban area, you’ll know in a bit. So, coming back to that Friday, when we arrived at Schluchsee, our first impression was – a surprisingly quiet place for us. I still remember we looked at each other with big eyes and said at the same time in German – gar nicht los – nothing is here. Or if you’re learning German like me, there’s an expression for that – “Tote Hose” 😆. We had booked two nights, so what were we going to do for such a long time? we asked each other.

But in the end, as I always say, life turns us in unexpected directions. We filled those days with fun, relaxation, and “calorie burn” 🚶🚶‍♀️.

Imagine me – a vietnamese lady and a motobike. In Vietnam, every corner can be discovered with motorbike. The longest distance I walked in Vietnam was from school back home, maybe around 500 meters. And I had to walk because at that age, I didn’t have a license to drive a motorbike yet 😂. Since I came to Germany and heard stories from my German colleagues about their hiking, I just have one expression – this one 😯. But I did improve in Germany; sometimes I walk from the office to the train station, which is around 2.5 km. That’s it. Thats why we decide to live near city so that we, especially I, don’t have to walk that much 😝.

On that Saturday morning in Schluchsee, after breakfast, we decided to go for a walk, just a simple, relaxing walk. After 30 minutes of walking, we rested at the bank, looking at the sea – so relaxing and calming our minds. Then, one idea popped into my mind. I asked my husband how long it would take to go one round of this lake. He googled and said it would take around 5 hours. After hearing that answer, the idea of walking one round of the lake started to fade. But still, we continued walking to see how far we could get. The more we walked, the more determined we were to ‘conquer’ this challenge. The first hour passed, and we were in the middle of nowhere. And then, after one more hour, we saw a restaurant and decided to make a stop for lunch. If I were to do this walk a second time, which I’m not sure I will, I wouldn’t stop for lunch because after stopping and relaxing, I found it more difficult to start again.

The funny thing was, that restaurant is more or less in the middle of the journey. So it didn’t make sense to go backward anymore. And we decided, of course, to move forward to complete the one round. One more hour passed, and we started feeling foot pain. The last hour was so tough, but we motivated ourselves that “we’re nearly there”. I can’t remember how many times we told each other “we’re nearly there”, but we still weren’t there 😂. In the end, we made it back to the hotel. All the plans from the morning that we would relax today and later in the evening go for swimming in the hotel were gone. We just didn’t want to move anymore 😂. But in general, it was a wonderful experience; we did something that neither of us had done before – a sense of achievement.

On the next Monday when I went to the office, I intended to proudly tell my colleagues that I did one round of walking, nearly 19 km (the exact number for one round is 17.76 km, according to Seerundweg Schluchsee, but I decided to round up to 19 km). Before I started telling my story, a German colleague told me, “T-Rex, you know what, I was in Rome for the last four days and I walked ninety km (yes 9 and 0, not nineteen like I did 🤣).” I was kind of speechless. I wasn’t sure if I should have told her how proud I was of my 19 km. But in the end, I still told the story. We both laughed and said, “one step at a time”. I actually did improve a lot compared to the previous me 😁.

Our walking tour

We started at the train station in Schluchsee, following that arrow route and came back.

Image source: Seerundweg Schluchsee.

An anime picture of me in Schluchsee

This is one of my favorite pictures in Schluchsee, which transformed it to anime style.