It’s only three weeks until the big weekend of walking in Stuttgart, Germany. We know you have it marked on your calendar and are planning to attend. Now what you need to do is plan to volunteer for a few hours doing one of the many important jobs required to pull off a successful walk. Contact the Stuttgart German-American Wandering Club (SGAWC) at volunteers@sgawc.org or melissa.rodeffer@gmail.com. Include in your message a phone number, the time you are available to work and a job preference, if you have one. Volunteers are needed for the set-up on Friday and the clean-up on Monday as well. We thank you in advance for your efforts
Speaking of the SGAWC, this weekend’s walk in Donzdorf, Germany, is a “Stammtisch” event for them. The club’s blue flag will be on a table at the start hall, so stop by and say hello. If you are a walker in the Stuttgart area, this is the organization you want to hook up with.
Located in the history-rich Ardennes, the Belgian walk in Hünningen-Büllingen has been an excellent event in the past. The doors open at 6:30 a.m. at the Zaal Concordia in Hünningen both Saturday and Sunday. Trail distances vary from seven to 50 kilometers. As you walk through the countryside, keep an eye out for the many monuments in the area dedicated to the U.S. forces that fought there in World War II.
Tuesday’s walk in Keppes- hausen, Germany, should be a doozy! It’s a 13-kilometer guided walk, and it is rated as difficult. The walk starts at 9 a.m. from the parking lot next to the bridge over the Our River.
If you’re looking for a beer stein as a volksmarch prize, head to Grombach, Germany, this weekend. It is a B-medal award, so the date on it might be a few years old, but beer steins are offered as prizes only a few times a year, so you might want to take advantage of this offer.
If you prefer your beer in a glass, head to Schiffweiler to get a Weizenbierglass at the volksmarch there. The start will be at Am Gegenortschacht Bauers- haus, which is on the B441 between the towns of Neunkirchen and Ottweiler.
The Sunday walks in Eyes and Ransdall, Netherlands, are so close together, we bet the trails might cross. If you walk there, make sure you finish at the same place you start!
Normally, we’d try to do both of these events since they are so close together. This weekend, however, we are off on a cruise. It has been a while since we’ve had any new country stamps for our Europa Cup award, so we are looking into getting at least one on one of our stops. We know there are no IVV walks in St. Petersburg, Russia, so that’s off the list. We contacted the main IVV representative for Denmark and he told us there were no permanent routes in Copenhagen. Strike two!
We contacted the Estonian representative of the IVV for a walk in Tallinn and have not heard back from her. That leaves Stockholm. The IVV book says there is a guided walk of Stockholm, so we contacted the president of the Swedish walking organization and he passed our inquiry on to the person in Stockholm. We hope to hear from them soon.
We’d be disappointed to visit four countries and not get at least one IVV stamp in our books. We are also making a short trip to Krakow, Poland, and could not find a permanent walk there, either. This Europa Cup award is getting to be kind of difficult. Oh well, if it were easy to get, it would not be prestigious. We’d love to hear from you if you have any tips or suggestions on the Europa Cup. Drop us a line at two.walkers@yahoo.com.
E-mail volksmarch information to two.walkers@yahoo.com. Mail brochures to Bob and Lorraine Huffaker, CMR 460, Box 278, APO, AE, 09752.
