Arriving at our friends home in Burgberg was like arriving at a family members home. Their home is set in a valley in Bavaria with mountains surrounding them, many still with snow on them.

If you are into outdoor sports and scenery, Bavaria is the place to visit and over the next three days we weren't going to get any rest.

Our first day started off easy enough with a small walk in the afternoon up to a "hut". The huts in Bavaria all appear to serve food and drinks, so after a walk of only a few kilometers and maybe a climb of a few hundred meters, our friends treated us to food and drink. This walk was a lovely introduction to Bavaria, there were mountains close with snow on them and lovely grassy meadows with lots and lots of flowers of all sorts growing in them.

The next day was stepped up a notch with a walk through the magnificent Breitachklamm gorge.

This walk is hard to describe, the path clung to the sides of the gorge while the crystal clear waters roared below. There were many big logs that had become jammed in crevices after being washed down by huge waters. Near the end of the gorge we crossed the river via a bridge and then climbed lots of steps to get to the top where we again crossed the gorge on a bridge, but this time many many meters above the gorge floor.

We then had quite a steep climb out of the valley to where we visited another hut for food and drink. This time the view was of meadows and mountains, but the mountains were in Austria.

These first two walks were the buildup to, for us, the big one. This walk was to help our friend do a survey of alpine birds. To do this we were up at 4am to be at the start of our 800meter climb by 5.30am. Why do birds get up so early?

The views on this walk were absolutely stunning, and starting so early meant we saw the mountains as the sun rose over them. The day started off cool, but by the time we arrived back at the car it was in the high twenties.

Starting in Rappenalptal valley, the southern most valley in Germany, at a lower altitude meant we started in lovely green, dense forest which slowly gave way to green pastures that the cattle graze on over summer. The path for the most was narrow, steep and rocky, for us, quite hard going in places. For others though very easy, we saw many walks, some running!

We didn't get to see a lot of bird, most are very small and identified by their call, of which there were many.

At the top of this mountain (2058m) we enjoyed a beer at Mindelheimer Hütte and took in the view before a long and painful decent back to the car. My knees don't like going down hills these days, even using walking poles.

After all this walking we were happy to be on the bike on Monday and on the road heading for Austria to visit friends in Innsbruck, but sad to be leaving our German family.