The Kneipp Pool
Today comes another edition of our Trail Diary: This hiking tour an hour south of Munich is particularly close to my heart as I remember coming here in 3rd and 4th grade with my primary school teacher who was crazy about hiking.
The Alpine Village Explorer has been one of our best-sellers since I started Munich Wanderland. It showcases a lovely (and less rugged) part of the Bavarian Alps, the mountain pastures here are stunning, and we have lunch at a working mountain farm – so yay, lots of cows! The reason it gets booked a lot also lies in its accessibility: all of the above neatly fits into 5 km and a gain of only 200 m. So it really is manageable for most.
My personal highlight is the infamous Kneipp pool toward the end of the tour: Kneipp pools are particularly popular in Upper Bavaria, named after a 19th-century priest named Sebastian Kneipp who believed in the healing power of cold water on circulation and overall wellbeing. His ideas grew into a whole spa culture – proper spa towns sprang up all over Bavaria and Austria, complete with dedicated cold-water treatments, exercise, herbal remedies, and a general philosophy of slowing down and living simply. You still see traces of that tradition in many places in the Alpine foothills, such as this little pool. Here, you wade through ice-cold, knee-deep mountain water, which might even be a bit painful in the beginning. But that cold stimulus, followed by rewarming, boosts circulation and your legs will go from screaming to genuinely refreshed. And as this particular pool is fed directly by a natural spring, it's actually drinking water. At a nearby water fountain everyone can refill their bottles and have a taste – the water is as crisp and fresh as it gets.
I will spare you the faded photos from the late 1980s of a bunch of skinny 3rd and 4th graders splashing around some of those Kneipp pools and streams. Especially the one where we run around in our underwear and are smeared with mud (pretty sure that this would result in a lot of parent complaints – or worse – if we tried that today). Instead, I'll add a photo of the pool that we visit with our guests. And I promise: They only need to pull their trousers up a little to get in.
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