Just get going, that was the plan, away from the center of Germany to the south, always south, straight ahead and past the autobahns, through Thuringia, Bavaria, Swabia towards the Alps and to Italy. Every academized Goethe reader can drive there, every second one does it too, but is it also possible to walk? With this question in his legs and a backpack weighing just under ten kilos, Willi Winkler started running from one day to the next. No one, no dog accompanied him, but on the way he met sad couch potatoes and those suffering from wanderlust, poets and musicians, saints and fools and everything in between. In baroque churches he dreamed of Italy until he was finally over the pass and in the promised land, where snow and ice awaited him. The adventurous journey, 1300 kilometers and more, is not recommended for everyone, but everyone can read it wrapped up warm.
Willi Winkler: Autumn light. A hike to Italy. Rowohlt: Berlin 2022. 254 pages, 23 euros.