Breakfast of Champions

 Day 8: Kolbnitz to Hühnerberg

Hours walked: 8:30 - 4:00

Kilometres walked: 16.3

Quote of the day: “Your eyes are so beautiful and green, they match your pasta!” - Hotelier

Jesuses seen: 11

Today began with one of the greatest breakfasts of the century: our table was so full of delicious Austrian food there was hardly room for our plates. The next table over was also completely full. Jams, cheeses, breads, yoghurts, cereals - we were all in heaven. Our dynamo of a hostess even encouraged us to make a full lunch out of the leftovers. 

We finally emerged, moaning, into the sunlight and set off eastward. Almost immediately a sheepdog flew towards us and feverishly started trying to herd us into a tight knot. This was Adria, as we eventually called her, and she was one tenacious dog. All morning, she scampered around us; despite our best efforts she refused to leave and eventually won Aurora’s heart. Unfortunately, this glossy-coated, golden-hearted creature was also a fleabitten runaway, and Turkey gave us quite enough fleabites, thank you very much. 

Ditching poor Adria was difficult but we managed it in the end. We double-timed our way to a gorge, where our day suddenly got steep and hot. We started climbing, with a short break at a stone table where Barbarossa was tempted by the Devil on his way home from the Crusades. A hundred hours later, we were still trudging up this endless freaking hill, only kept going thanks to Tova, our tireless designated cheerleader for the day. We came upon a dairy and everyone got tall glasses of icy milk; then visited a church as we often do nowadays, and cruised the last few kilometres down to Hühnerberg. 

Our guesthouse was very nice - the girls got to pet horses, goats, bunnies, cats, you name it. Dinner was garden-fresh, Jakob had a rather surreal nightcap with the hotelier, and that was the end of that day.