Even with larger biennial respites into alpine hinterlands, work sweltered from the end of 2022 through halftime 2024. I was looking forward to August to catch my breath and potentially meet up with an old friend in the French Alps. That specific sojourn ended up falling through, but in its place something remarkable happened: I did… nothing.

Let me, er, unwind the definition of “nothing.” Long on my bucket list has been Ljubljana, Slovenia, which is something around a six hours’ drive from Munich. In my years in Kempten, I didn’t have an plausibly excusable window to justify a dedicated visit, but in a cruel coincidence one of my materials suppliers is located there and I took a work trip to see their progress in May 2024. The weather was rather decent (one days was even positively warm), but as on all of my work trips I was fully engaged and didn’t take downtime to check out the locale. So much for crossing Lake Bled and the Slovenian Alps off my bucket list; at least the view out of my hotel room didn’t tantalize too much what I was missing.

In not having much of a chance to explore, I also never made it to the Adriatic coast. Maybe this is what planted the undetected seed that sprouted once the Alps idea wasn’t to be. I kept Europe as the overall summer destination, but for once I didn’t force hiking throughout the entire duration. I planned to visit friends in Kempten the first half of my weeklong departure from work, and for the second half somehow out of the blender of infinite possibility came the notion to visit Italy, and specifically, Sardinia. Why would I drive to beaches ten miles from my front door when I could fly across the Atlantic to sit on my ass?

FOWO (fear of weathering out) turned out strongly fortuitously in my favor. I landed to showers in Munich, but during a walk and coffee with a friend on a six-month assignment in Germany we only got rained on toward my walk back to the car. Monday started off wet but was merely overcast when a former Charleston colleague (who relocated to the same plant I had been at in my time in the Allgäu) and I went for a small walk to the Mariaberg, a local hill overlooking Kempten. After some hand wringing about the weather, Tuesday blasted through cloud and was completely sunny at altitude before the rains returned on Wednesday for my onward connection to Italy. Originally I had thought to resummit the Ifen, but thinking I could try something new I chose the Geißhorn (a name which might become confusing with a future post) instead. Looming directly across the Gemstel valley was the Widderstein, which I thought might cost me an extra hour to hike and might be too much to tackle in time for dinner back in town. The loop up the Geißhorn wasn’t super steep, but unlike my first elevatory rekindling at Sky Pond, I felt the altitude and alpine reimmersion on this one. After a few hours punctuated with more rest stops than I would have normally taken had I attempted the hike while I was still living in Germany, I arrived at the summit to a sea of clouds below, and above them, a ridgeline spur of the Geißhorn massif. Beyond the valley lay the Allgäuer Trinity and the Allgäuer Hochalpen beyond: three peaks locally recognized as pristine summits, both as mountaineering conquest and revered symbols of the region.

And here the unneeded pun unleashed in the previous post (i.e., the German play on words: Seen as “seas”) continues. My journey summitward was in complete sunshine, surprising but appreciated given the weather of the previous days. Earlier that morning, next to a pasture well below the summit, the sky between me and the Widderstein (broad summit toward the left quarter of the image) was still clear. Gradually, a sea of white filled in the Gemstel valley below the Geißhorn, instantly giving flashbacks to Sky Pond — what could be more allegorical than seas of cloud soaring far into the heavens, and who said that ponds had to be filled with liquid water?

I basked in the sunshine as I ate lunch and started the tour down, this time descending on the eastern face of the mountain. I generally prefer looped tours to out-and-backs, and on this particular descent thought of a future series of blog posts as I kept coming across the Allgäu’s most recognizable inhabitant: the Allgäuer Braunvieh, the Allgäu brown cow. They weren’t particularly interested in me, but nearly all did lazily eye me up as I passed.

I resisted bagging a second summit for the day (passing by both the Kemptener Köpfle and Angererkopf) and instead focused on getting back to the car park so I could meet with friends for dinner — I didn’t even bother trying to grab a long exposure of a waterfall on my descent, settling for a distant shot instead. The ascent had taken me slightly more time than I had calculated, and weather indecision in the morning also delayed my start time to the trailhead. It was on this hike that I decided I should consider investing in a fitness watch with mapping functionality, as my phone ran down to 1% battery with about 1 km to go. I was never lost by any stretch, but I did check my navigation several times to confirm my circumnavigation was correct throughout the tour.

This tour was among the most elevation gain I had done on a dayhike, and by the time I got back to my hotel I abandoned the idea to shower and drive another half hour to Kempten. I apologized for missing the dinner and took one more memory jogger before dining in the hotel. Two full days, as it turns out, is just enough time when weather cooperates to see the outdoors but too short to really shake everyone’s hand. Luckily, I had worked a half day in the plant that week (thanks to rain) and got the opportunity to say hello to several ex-colleagues while there, but a get-together with everyone wasn’t meant to be this time.

This was my third time in the Allgäu since my departure. I attended a friend’s wedding in 2022 and had a weekend visit after preacceptance in 2023. While I still feel a connection to the area — I was familiar with nearly every backroad while I lived there; I knew the area like a New York City cab driver “knows” Manhattan — there’s a certain feeling of unattainability when visiting; as if my departure sprinkled a taste of regret in not being any longer local. The second half of my trip, then, was a full disconnect from anything familiar: I had never been to Sardinia, didn’t know anyone from there, nor was I about to punish my lungs or legs by seeking elevation. Instead, I decided to give island life — and “real” Seen for once — a whirl.

I arrived at Olbia with temperatures pushing toward 100 °F. Perfect that my first full day there would be on a catamaran, cruising around the Santa Maddalena archipelago. We stopped multiple times to jump in the water, the crew kept us fed with watermelon and handmade pasta and snacks. The azure water was a welcome departure from the rather… unnerving brown water around the Lowcountry. The opening photo of this post was at the Porto della Madonna, a natural swimming pool behind Santa Maria island, and everywhere we went the water was crystal clear.

It wasn’t clear who lived on the small islands forming the archipelago. While a day or two of this can be good for the soul, it’s also enormously constraining — I’m not sure this is the retirement I necessarily envision for myself. But this wasn’t retirement, and to play on a boat in perfect water temperatures was admittedly downright comfortable.

It was high season on Sardinia, and I was lucky to have found a manageable rate at an all-inclusive resort in Santa Teresa Gallura. My second day there I planned no activities and took the hotel’s shuttle to the beach before walking back for lunch and reading at the hotel pool. I don’t normally do the slow-life thing and certainly not for two consecutive days — I felt a little giddy in disconnecting. Prior to dinner, I wandered around the city, taking in the colors of the town and the pastel sunset toward Corsica.

The following day was my departure out of Sardinia and the beginning of my return to reality. It was strange having just “one” adventure, though I suppose the two days of lounging in Sardinia could also be considered an adventure in their own right. I shopped for souvenirs for my team before driving back to Olbia and connecting in Frankfurt the following morning. When I flew back from Ljubljana, I transited via Brussels — upgrades seemed open on that route so I gave it a whirl. An added bonus: I could see the airport from my hotel window.

Frankfurt as an airport is far more hectic but fares into and out of differing countries (even if both are EU) seem to be higher, so this trip I settled with a conventional airport routing on an otherwise rather unconventional itinerary: if I’m flying internationally to be outdoors, normally I try to spend more than one day in the mountains. But this trip — gazing across a sea of cloud and then sitting at an actual sea — was pleasant for all the right reasons. I met with friends I hadn’t seen in years, try a new way to spend time off, and had perfect weather to go along with an arguably enviable itinerary (it’s hard to tell from this post in particular, but I still try to avoid assuming privilege for granted). And yes, to the groans of all, it even served to close the chapter on being [among] Seen.