Germany 8: Hiking near the Bastei Bridge. Saxon Switzerland hikes

   My arrival at the Bastei Bridge hotel started off with a bit of difficulty.  I pulled up to the hotel and dropped off my luggage.  The hotel receptionist advised me to park in the second parking lot on the left.  In order to reach the parking lots, you had to navigate through waves of people walking along the street.  In any case, I parked, and then took a picture of the lot to make sure it was correct.  When I showed the receptionist, she explained that this was the wrong lot, and that she actually meant the first lot, but then to veer left.

  She showed me on a map where the correct lot was.  In order for me to get out of the lot, I had to pay five Euros, even though I was only there for fifteen minutes.  I went back to the receptionist to ask for a supervisor.  She pointed me to the bar near the restaurant.  I went across the lobby and the bar was empty.  I came back and said, "Ok, I am starting to get angry.  Please physically bring me to your supervisor."  She proceeded to bring me out of the hotel and a few hundred feet down the street, to a separate restaurant, and then up the back stairs to the bar.  The Supervisor sat me down and completely understood the issue and explained that the receptionist was new.  All I asked for was reimbursement of the five euros, even though I had wasted well over thirty minutes.  He handed me cash and I went to my hotel room.

  The weather was nice and the crowds had dissipated, so I decided to take a bit of a hike.  I went down to the bridge, crossed the bridge, and paid the cost of entry to a set of walkways by putting coins into a jar.  Then, I walked a bit farther down the path, took in the views, and returned to the bridge.  On this original side, I took a path that led up to another viewpoint.  By then, it was just me and one other photographer who was arriving, with his tripod.  I wished him good luck.

The fort that I visited the day before

  The next day, I left around 3:00 for what was planed as a short hike.  I couldn't find more than one highly rated hike on Alltrails, so for that day I simply used the green trails on Google Maps to guide me.  I began my trek towards the Pavillionaussicht viewpoint.  There was a couple here taking posed photos with their dogs.  The next viewpoint was the Kleine Gans Sud Aussicht, which was empty.  

  I retraced my steps until I reached a clearing and took the Gansweg route east.  It was a little hidden by overgrown bushes, but the path was easy to follow.  There were many downed trees along the path, so for that part it was not well taken care of.  As a result, perhaps, I encountered no one.  At the very end, the path went to both the right and left.  The path on the right led to magnificent views.  The one on the left had a nice view, but it was just all trees.

  When I got back to the clearing, I saw many people walking up and down steps.  I could not find any reference to this path, so I figured that I would check it out real quick.  The path descended and descended, and turned into a couple of hours.  It was extraordinarily green and beautiful.

  Once at the bottom of the trail, I took the flat path towards the town.  The path wasn't particularly interesting at this point, but it did eventually have a river alongside.  The first night I had heard sounds of some kind of concert from below.  This path that I was on ended up merging with the entrance to a show.  Crowds were entering.  I took a path next to it, that led back to the other side of the Bastei Bridge, completing my circular path.  As this day was Sunday, the grocery stores were closed.  There was only one restaurant near my hotel, but they had no outdoor seating and did not allow takeout.  Therefore, I ate cookies for dinner.

  For my last full day, I took the three hour path shown on Alltrails.  There weren't any views on this path, so I took my insect lens and had at it.

  The path began as a forest path, then passed some houses, and then descended to merge with the flat path with the river alongside it that I was on during the previous day.  Just passed the place where I began my descent back toward my hotel, this time I continued on.  I stopped at the first restaurant I saw, which was more of a fish snack shop.  I asked for coffee, but they said that their machine as broken.  Instead, I chose an apple flavored caffeinated drink, along with their homemade potato salad, which was quite excellent.

The snack shop

  The path ended up in the town of Rathen.  I Googled the menus until i found something that I liked. I crossed the river and ascended along a narrow path until I reached a restaurant with panorama views of the town and its small castle atop it.  I had a chicken curry dish and an amazing apple pastry.  The service was insanely slow, but the food was good, and compared to cookies, it was heaven. 

  I began my walk back to the hotel, but Google's path brought me up a ramp that had signs saying it was private property.  I retraced my route a bit and found another way home.