This is a recount of a walk from Paris to Bad Nenndorf in 2003. I started out with our dog Puki and my friend Knarf, and 23 days later me and Puki arrived at home. Knarf had only been able to walk with us for about a week because there were some other things he needed to attend to.

There are no maps, and only very few pictures to go along with these posts. We didn’t even have a tent back then, just sleeping bags and thermarests. We hardly spent any money at all, except for the occasional serving of baguette and cheese or some canned foods.

It was a very tough three-and-a-half weeks of my life, but it was worth it, and I think I got inspired by it. That’s why I chose to post my original diary entries here to go along with the longest way.

The only downside: I am German, therefore I write my private diary in German as well. I’m not going to bother to translate all this stuff, but I’ll try to come up with a short recap for each day.

The pictures hardly have anything to do with the text, and I only edited about 2% of the diary content, so if it doesn’t make any sense, please don’t worry about it!

Here we go:

“Knarf stieß unverhofft dazu.

Puki schien das nichts auszumachen, um elf Uhr dreißig saßen wir in der Mètro. Zunächst schien es um die Mittagszeit kühl zu sein, doch bei unserer Abreise von Paris-Bobigny konnten wir sogar unsere Alabasterkörper demi-nu der Öffentlichkeit präsentieren.

Enttäuscht nagten wir an unserem letzten Quäntchen Mut, als wir durch die finstersten Wohnblocks des 92sten marschierten, und scheinbar unser Reisetempo nicht einzuhalten imstande waren.

All dies geschah übrigens ohne nennenswerten Widerstand der Eingeborenen. Das Wort „Kapitulation“ lag in der Luft.

Mehrere kleine Dörfer, einen Bahnuntergang, dutzende von Radfahrern und ein kleines Wäldchen später, liegen wir nun auf einem Stoppelfeld vor ein paar Bäumen, der Hund schläft, es schmerzen die Schultern, das Tal liegt in Frieden darnieder und in der Ferne hinter dem Horizont glüht Paris. Über uns tauchen Flugzeuge im Landeanflug aus dem Himmel, und wir beten um gutes Wetter. Knarf durchbricht die Idylle mit einer Beobachtung: „Salad hat einen fantastischen Hintern.”

Recap:  We had taken the subway train to a station in the east of the city, then walked through the jungles of the cité. It took a long time for us to get out of the heavily populated areas, and when we finally rested out on a field, with the airplanes diving in and taking off above us, I remember being very happy that I had my friend and our dog with me on my first night ever to be spent outside in the open.