It’s almost too cheesy to be true: After the two-year Corona break, the Tölzer Leonhardi ride on Monday is so picture-perfect, as if the city could have ordered it that way. The sky shines white and blue, the temperatures are neither too icy nor too warm, almost 15,000 spectators line the path of the traditional pilgrimage from the spa district down to the pedestrian zone, up to the Calvary and back through Marktstraße to the Mühlfeldkirche, and yes, also the Prime Minister Markus Söder has come, no team leader makes his horses gallop, everything remains accident-free. The Leonhardi ride is the cement that holds society in and around Bad Tölz together, Mayor Ingo Mehner (CSU) summed up afterwards at the reception of the city in the parish home Franzmühle. “For two years you noticed what happens when this putty is missing.”
The morning at Calvary is sunny but chilly and dominated by anticipation. The first guests climb the Calvary in Joppe and Jankern, the more ambitious ones via the stairs from the city center, the more leisurely ones from the Austraße via the gravel path, which the carts will also take later. Above the first rest, the view sweeps over the Alps in the distance, the wooded forest hills in the foreground and the Isar bridge at the foot of the Calvary. There, on the bridge, people are already standing in line. Everything is waiting, old acquaintances meet to chat, everything is ready.
On carriage number 56, women in rogues and bodices drive up the Calvary.
(Photo: Manfred Neubauer)
This year, 71 horse-drawn carriages from Bad Tölz and Bavaria draw the traditional costume clubs, bands and the city council to Calvary, where the city pastor Peter Demmelmair blesses the cattle and carters. The drivers and Leonhardi drivers already know the procedure very well, for others it will be a premiere: Markus Söder attended the Tölz pilgrimage in 2017, but now for the first time as Prime Minister. Contrary to expectations, there is no greeting from him, eyes and ears belong only to the ringing of the bells of the Calvary Church, the bells of the festively decorated horses, the calls of the horse drivers and the words of the clergy. At nine o’clock the bells ring for the first time, down in the town the chest and table wagons set off punctually. Even before the first of them reaches Calvary, Söder is there, walking in a green loden coat with his entourage across the chapel forecourt, shaking a few hands and having his picture taken. Then he disappears over the small staircase in the direction of the Calvary Church. “He’s now looking at our beautiful Oberland,” says a woman next door, blinking after him.
The first carriages bring up the clergy and aldermen, all of whom reverently don their top hats to the vicar. Then the councilors line up on the honorary stand, Söder is there again, takes his place among the city councilors and appreciates the procession with a satisfied smile next to Mayor Mehner. Worldliness and clergy face each other, the chariots drive through the middle. The pastor blesses, Söder smiles, the horses snort, the carters call and the wagons crunch over the gravel. From time to time a brass band plays “Praise the Lord”, the woman next door sings devoutly.
Silent guest of honour: Prime Minister Markus Söder between his party friends Thomas Holz (left) and Martin Bachhuber. Far left with top hat: Mayor Ingo Mehner.
(Photo: Manfred Neubauer)
With a steady ringing of bells, it goes on until the last wagon reaches the Calvary and comes to a standstill on the meadow. The sun is now driving the sweat onto the fur of the powerful cold-blooded horses. The women in rogues and bodices on the chest wagons and table wagons decorated with boxwood have taken off their fox skins, which are now dangling from the edge of the wagon. City pastor Demmelmair heralds the pilgrimage service that Jeremias Schröder, Abbot President of the Benedictine Congregation of St. Ottilien, is holding this year. Meanwhile, the less devout are driven to the parked wagons, where the mischievous and corsetry women distribute schnapps and cookies. The first empty beer bottles gather along the way. Children are lifted onto the patient horses and photographed, in the background the service sounds from loudspeakers.
Back to the city center: Since his election in 2020, Mehner has not yet taken part in a Leonhardi trip as mayor. In tails and top hat, he now rumbles at the front of the city council car over the cobblestones in the pedestrian zone and later on Salzstrasse. There, his predecessor Josef Janker, who had let himself be shaken in the wagon during the last pilgrimage three years ago, observed him. The fact that he is now standing on the side of the road as a normal spectator suits Janker: “It’s a nice experience, you’re independent.” Mehner, on the other hand, feels “anticipation and tingling” before and during the trip, but also the burden of responsibility when it comes to the safety of participants and visitors.
Pastor Peter Demmelmair blesses the pilgrims.
(Photo: Manfred Neubauer)
In order to avoid danger, the Leonhardi committee issued a ban on galloping for the first time in the history of the procession with horses, chest and table wagons. Even light trotting has been banned. In the years before the pandemic, there were often near-accidents, says Mehner: “We were very lucky that nothing happened.” The loud galloping on the salt road from the Rid department store to the Mühlfeld church was an exciting but also risky moment of the pilgrimage. “Some people may find the ban a pity, but the future of the Leonhardi ride is more important than the spectacle,” says Mehner. All carters conscientiously adhere to the new rule.
The crowd gathers at Calvary.
(Photo: Manfred Neubauer)
Some city councilors experience the first pilgrimage to Corona from a different perspective. Michael Ernest, for example. The social democrat, who lives on Hintersberg, used to make a pilgrimage up to Calvary with his children. This time he catches the procession from the Kurviertel to Mühlfeldkirche in the city council car. “That was fun,” he says. “The best part was the weather.” And Johannes Gundermann (Greens) has only been a mandate holder for two years. He practically worked his way up the Leonhardi ride. He used to be a badge salesman, drove with the altar boys and later with the Ellbacher Schützen. But as a city councillor, says Gundermann, “that was the highlight”.
The pioneers of the Leonhardi ride in the city.
(Photo: Manfred Neubauer)
In contrast, Julia Dostthaler, although only 33 years old, is an experienced Leonhardi pilgrim. She was already there when she was three years old, and since then 27 or 28 times, she says. In the magnificent dirndl, the CSU city councilor does not sit next to her fellow councillors, but in one of the trunk cars together with her mother, who is responsible for the occupation. After getting up at the crack of dawn, they both hope that the phone will remain silent and that none of the rascals will cancel at the last moment. “There’s tension there,” says Dostthaler.
Mehner slowly falls away when the last car has received the final blessing at the Mühlfeld Church. At the end of his speech in the Franzmühle, the mayor spoke of Bad Tölz as a “happy city” and that two things belonged to a Catholic pilgrimage: pray a lot and celebrate a lot. And while he’s greeting the delegations from the twin towns of Vichy and San Giuliano Terme in the rectory, the celebrations are already starting in the pedestrian zone: the Goaßlschnalzer have taken up positions there and are making the air bang.