Trekking Munich to Venice. John Hayes

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СКАЧАТЬ the waymarking, the steps and fixed steel ropes, or the alpine huts, there is nothing quite like it anywhere else – enabling ordinary walkers to go to extraordinary places.

History of the region

      The walk from Munich to Venice passes through three countries – Germany, Austria and Italy – all of which went through intense changes from the mid-19th century which have a direct bearing on the character of the walk.

      Munich, capital of Bavaria, is surprisingly ‘imperial’. Bavaria was a distinct country until 1871 when a secret bribe from Bismark persuaded the high living and indebted Ludwig II (called the ‘fairy tale king’ because he built so many castles) to nominate Kaiser Wilhelm I as Emperor of a united Germany. Bavaria retains a special status in Germany to this day and its inhabitants will describe themselves as Bavarian first and German second.

      The style of food and accommodation don’t really change when you cross the border from Bavarian Germany into Austria and the two countries share much in terms of culture. Their recent history is also intertwined. The Austro-Hungarian Empire dominated the loose confederation of states that existed before the unification of Germany and, although the triumph of Bismark and Prussia, reversed the power hierarchy, the fate of the new Germany and the old Empire remained connected until after the First World War.

      World War I dramatically reset the national boundaries crossed by the Traumpfad. Much more of the walk is now spent in Italy than it might have been! The total collapse of the vast Austro-Hungarian empire resulted in the border moving north with Italy absorbing German-speaking South Tyrol. This results today in an intensely confusing nomenclature from Stage 12 with mountain huts, mountains, towns, cities and food known by two (Italian and German) and sometimes three (Ladin, another local language) names.

      The War settled the boundaries of modern Italy and also completed the process of Italian unification that had taken place over the previous 60 years. Italian historians also see it as the great nationalist war and the last part of the Traumpfad visits some key battle sites. Particularly important are the Marmolada – which was the scene of prolonged fighting on top of and underneath the glacier – and the River Piave, witness to the last great battle of the war, the Battle of Vittorio Veneto. The last three days of the route follow the Piave on the approach to Venice and the references to the triumph of Italian arms are impossible to miss.

      The arrival of alpinism

      Parallel to, and intertwined with the national histories of Germany, Austria and Italy is the history of alpinism, walking and the Alpine Clubs.

      The attraction of the Alps to mountaineers can be traced back to the late 18th century and is described in a wonderful book The Playground of Europe by Sir Leslie Stephen. As well as being father to Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell, Stephen was one of the godfathers of British alpinism and his book, along with Edward Whymper’s Scrambles Amongst the Alps is one of the classics of the genre. As well as describing great adventures it puts the ‘discovery’ of the Alps in the context of a wider search for a simpler but more heroic lifestyle that was going on throughout Europe, known as ‘Romanticism’.

      Stephen, Whymper and the British led the ‘golden age’ of climbing in the Alps, the time when, in the 1850s and 1860s, hundreds of peaks where ‘conquered’ for the first time. In Britain climbing and hiking was an elite activity but not so in Germany where the Romantic ideal of the mountains captured the imagination of the new middle class. The British Alpine Club was modelled on an English gentleman’s club with a small select membership but the German equivalent grew rapidly into the world’s largest mass membership sporting organisation. The new membership wanted access to the mountains and the huge infrastructure of mountain huts used today was largely built in the 30 years before the First World War (the names often reflect the local clubs that paid for them – such as the Berliner Hütte).

      The German Alpine Club recruited members from the wider German-speaking world (including Austria), and hiking and climbing in the Alps was seen as a ‘German’ activity and closely associated with German nationalism. By the late 19th century this nationalism shamefully became associated with anti-semitism and a number of city and regional associations adopted an ‘Aryan Paragraph’ excluding non-Christian members.

      The German Alpine Club, liked most civilian bodies, rallied round the flag at the outbreak of the World War I but the importance of the alpine front against Italy from 1915 gave alpinists a particular significance. Although a small proportion of the huge membership engaged in the fighting the involvement of Alpine Club members became the stuff of legend, reported and repeated through the club journals.

      The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the defeat of Germany was a particular blow to the heroes of the alpine front and one that many refused to accept. By the early 1920s the Alpine Club had become a battleground as the emerging Nazi party fought more moderate and left-leaning alpinists for its control. By 1924 Jews were effectively excluded from the Club and its huts.

      By the 1930s, the German Alpine Club, like most sporting associations, had been absorbed into the Nazi totalitarian state. Alpinism, however, had a particular cultural status and mountaineers, willing to risk all for their sport and country, were seen as models for the new state. As a result, after the war Deutscher Alpenverein (the name dates back to 1938) was deemed a Nazi organisation by the Allies in 1945 and dissolved.

      In the early 1950s, separate German (Deutscher Alpenverein) and Austrian (Oesterreichischer Alpenverien) Alpine Clubs were allowed to re-establish and together they continue to maintain and develop the incredible walking infrastructure of Austrian Alps. This includes not only the huts but also the footpaths, fixed ropes and waymarks. We wouldn’t be able to walk from Munich to Venice without them.

The invention of a mountain pilgrimage

      The Traumpfad was the idea of a German man, Ludwig Grassler, who, after several false starts, walked it for first time 1974. His guide was first published 1977. An Alpinist himself, he was careful to construct a route that was both direct and spectacular. He succeeded and, like Wainwright’s famous ‘coast-to-coast’ (across northern England), one man’s vision has captured many thousands of imaginations.

      Most of Ludwig’s journey follows existing routes, some of which (like the Alta Via 1 and 2 across the Dolomites) are famous in their own right. Although there is no designated ‘Munich to Venice’ footpath – no specific set of waymarks signposting the route – it is easy to follow and, because it’s more popular than many designated walks, it is well supported by locals. The route continues to evolve with slight differences in the different guidebooks and changes to reflect new circumstances. When accommodation closes, or a landslip destroys a section of the route, or a new footpath is opened, then the route responds.

The route

      There is more to the Traumpfad than a north–south traverse of the Alps but the mountains cannot help but dominate the experience.

      It takes only two and a half days’ walk alongside the River Isar to get from Munich to the mountains. You are then in the mountains for at least 20 consecutive days (depending on the choices you make about how to stage your journey). When you emerge, you follow the River Piave, over five days of flat walking, to get to Venice.

      The Alps are a young and dynamic mountain range sitting right in the middle of Europe. They are the product of Africa’s land mass thrusting northwards. A huge, multi-layered ripple in Europe’s tectonic plate has been driven skywards where, high and exposed, the elements wreak havoc and erosion is rapid, violent and fierce. The youngest, softest layers suffer the most and vast quantities of debris are transported out of the Alps by rivers and glaciers only to be returned as Africa continues to move north. The remnants of these younger layers, carved into mountains, are found on the northern and southern sides of the Alps with the toughest СКАЧАТЬ