My 40km Odyssey: From Stühlingen to Schaffhausen, with Blisters and Existential Dread

Let’s be clear: 40 kilometers is not “just a long walk.” It’s a commitment. It’s a relationship. It’s a full-blown Wagner opera in hiking boots.

Yet myself—analog photographer, semi-reliable navigator, and once self-declared “nature sympathizer”—decided this was the ideal way to spend a day.

The plan was simple: depart Stühlingen with noble intentions, follow the Klettgau-Rhein-Weg, and arrive triumphantly in Schaffhausen before the last café closed.

Komoot cheerfully promised “a scenic and rewarding hike.” Komoot is a known liar.

Kilometer 1–10: The Romance Phase

The first hours were golden. Morning fog danced in the meadows, birds sang something suspiciously like Bach, and I felt strong, virile, almost Swiss.

I took photos of barns. Of moss. Of a particularly photogenic rock that looked like it was having an identity crisis.

A local cow mooed at me with disarming sincerity. I mooed back. A bond was formed.

Kilometer 11–20: The Disillusionment

Around kilometer 13, Komoot’s idea of a trail turned philosophical: the “path” became a narrow line of guilt between cornfields and thornbushes.

I, now sunburnt and slightly betrayed, questioned all life choices that had led me here—especially the boots bought during a “minimalist phase.”

I passed a place called Buchberghaus, but it was closed. Of course it was. All things eventually close. Time is a spiral, and so are my knees.

I took a self-timer portrait: face weary, posture tragic, hair sculpted by sweat.

Kilometer 21–35: The Acceptance

Somewhere after Hallau (or possibly in an alternate timeline), i began to ascend. Not spiritually—literally. A hill that seemed designed by Sisyphus himself.

At the top, I met a group of pensioners eating sausage and drinking white wine. They’d started from Schaffhausen and were heading back.

Back.

I laughed too long and too loud. A crow stared at me in concern.

Kilometer 36–40: The Schaffhausen Mirage

Finally, in the soft apocalyptic glow of late afternoon, I saw it: Schaffhausen. Civilization. Trams. Potential strudel.

I entered the town limping like a poet in exile. Children played nearby. A cyclist passed without suffering. It felt offensive.

I bought a Rivella, sat by the Rhine, and stared blankly at a duck for 25 minutes.

I had walked 40 kilometers. I had communed with cows, cursed the sun, and learned that comfort is a bourgeois illusion.

But i had also captured the journey on 12 exposures—each one slightly crooked, slightly glorious.

As the sun dipped behind the Munot fortress, i whispered to no one in particular:

“Next time… train.”

Then I fell asleep on the bench.