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Chances are that, even if you trained for the H2H as recommended here, you'll feel a little stiff and footsore first thing in the morning today. The first few days of a long hike are almost always a distinctly mixed pleasure as the body gets used once again to carrying a backpack (and frequently complains vigorously during the process!).

Today we'll continue our walk along the Isar towards the Alps, with a slight detour through the busy market town of Wolfratshausen (made necessary by the need to cross the Loisach River as it joins the Isar from the west). It should be an easy and pleasant day with the mountains still but a rumour on the horizon.

You'll spend the night at the Landgasthof Beham, an isolated (it is located in a hamlet called Einöd, which means "solitude"), century-old inn with a reputation for gutbürgerliche Küche (i.e., hearty food and plenty of it), washed down by more of the best beer in the world.

Route
From the Kloster head back to the Isar and turn south to walk upstream along the western bank, ignoring signs claiming that the route is impassible (they were put up when the main path was washed away in floods in 2006, but there is a network of secondary paths that you can follow without difficulty), Once you get to Wolfratshausen, in order to minimize road-walking, cross to the eastern bank of the Loisach at the first opportunity and then continue along the riverside path heading south. If you need to stock up on provisions, you can cross back at the next (second) bridge to the main shopping street. Otherwise leave the river at the third bridge and make your way east through town back to the Isar meadows, at which point you turn south once more. At the Tattenkofenerbrücke near the end of the day cross the Isar and then turn right along the road towards Einöd where, around 1km later, you'll find the Landgasthof Beham.

Alternatives: unnecessary, or rather, if necessary then you probably shouldn't be on the H2H!
Map: K-180 Starnberger See.

Journal
The House to House blog... stage 2.

Photos
Click here to go to all of our H2H photos on Flickr.

Room and Board Options
Lunch: either eat in Wolfratshausen or picnic.
Dinner and overnight: the only convenient place is the Landgasthof Beham (+49-(0)8027/386, 23 rooms, closed Thursdays in June). It feels a little like the end of the world, particularly in the rain (as was the case for us), but the food is good. Other options are Gasthaus Geiger in Humbach (+49-(0)8027/250) and a different Gasthof Geiger (+49-(0)8171/31611) in Geretsried, but both are some distance off the path.

Getting There and Back
Kloster Schäftlarn: S-Bahn (local) trains every 20-40 minutes will take you from Munich to the village of Ebenhausen from where a path leads a little more than a kilometer downhill to the Kloster (for S-Bahn schedule information see the MVV).
Einöd: A very infrequent bus stops in Einöd and can take you either to the Wolfratshausen S-Bahn station (departures for Munich every 20-40 minutes) or to the Bad Tölz railway station (for bus and S-Bahn schedule information, see the MVV, and for train schedule information between Bad Tölz and Munich, see Die Bahn).
ViaMichelin Road Map and Driving Directions: centered on Koster Schäftlarn, centered on Einöd.

Background Information and Links
Wikipedia: Wolfratshausen.
Local websites: Wolfratshausen.

Interesting local topics:

• Rafting. Wolfratshausen is one of the few places in Europe where the ancient trade of rafting is still practiced. "Rafting" is here to not to be understood as rubber boats in rapids, but instead the movement of cargo down-river on large platforms (up to 20 tons in weight) made from tree trunks. Rafting has probably been done on the Isar and Loisach since Celtic times, but the first official records date back to around 1150. At first the cargo was mostly wood and lime (both for construction), but by the 17th Century rafters were moving goods such as fruit, spices, cotton, and silk from the Venetian Market in Mittenwald all the way (via the Isar and the Danube) to Vienna and Budapest. At the peak of the trade, in the 19th Century, over 8,000 rafts a year arrived in Munich. Today rafting is a tourist business, with some 50,000 people a year taking the 25km ride from Wolfratshausen to Munich. The rafts are equipped with tables and benches, beer kegs and Brotzeit, with a Blaskapelle for music and an on-board toilet for, well, for those who need it. For more information, see here (in German).
• Post-glacial landscape. It is difficult to imagine, looking around at the fertile green landscape of the Isar valley, that not so long ago this was all covered by ice. The most recent ice-age, known locally as the Würmeiszeit, came to an end only about 10,000 years ago, and during its approximately 100,000 year reign glaciers up to 1km thick pushed northward out of the Alps most of the way to Munich. Along with the ice came vast quantities of rocks and pebbles, which were deposited as lateral (i.e., alongside) and terminal (i.e. at the end of) moraines. The sides of the Isar valley you have been walking through are the remains of ancient lateral moraines, and at the end of the last ice age when the glaciers retreated for the last time, the terminal moraine of the Isar/Loisach glacier led to the formation of a large lake in and around Wolfratshausen (which disappeared over time as it was filled in by sediment and drained by the Isar eroding its way down through the terminal moraine).
  
  

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