Photo exhibition Werner Kräutler: “My walk to the end of the world”
Werner Kräutler was on the road for 115 days. From Rietz near Imst he can walk to Finisterre in western Spain. He photographed his impressions and exhibited them last week at “kooio”, the forum for art and communication in Innsbruck. The visitor is also available with advice for long-distance hiking.
Werner Kräuter is a passionate long-distance hiker. He already has a number of routes and thousands of kilometers in his legs. This year he took 115 days to hike from his home in Rietz along the Way of St. James to Finisterre. Kräutler had to overcome around 2,300 kilometers and 40,000 meters in altitude. “But I’m not a religious pilgrim,” he clarified in an interview with the district newspapers. Except for a little pain at the beginning, the walk went smoothly. The path led him through landscapes far away from industrial agriculture, as well as through industrially used farms with miles of maize crops taller than a man. Kräutler was particularly impressed by the many bridges over rivers that he crossed on his journey: “But it’s not the bridges over the big rivers that interest me. It’s the wonderful, mostly rather small Romanesque and Gothic bridges over swamps and small river runners that have stood the test of time.”
The Way of St. James
The idea of an exhibition only came to him when he was already in France. He has a long history with the Way of St. James. Already in the year 2000 he was on the way to St. James. He painfully remembers that there were significantly more butterflies on the route back then. Kräutler himself later shared responsibility for signposting the Way of St. James in Tyrol. “In Spain there is still a yellow arrow on every corner of the house, so you can’t really get lost. It’s not quite as pronounced in Switzerland and Austria.” explains the hiking pro. Again and again he met other pilgrims on the way. A mixture of mutual helpfulness, freedom and equality combined his encounters. “You don’t ask what another hiker does for a living, everyone is somehow a pilgrim, no matter what social class they come from. Everyone is searching for themselves in the broadest sense. As a group, we understand each other and often sit together and exchange ideas things that you wouldn’t tell anyone else,” concludes Kräutler.
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