Bavaria is Germany’s most famous region. Its traditional dress of Lederhosen – literally “leather trousers” – and Oktoberfest beer festivities are known the world over, and taken by many foreigners as epitomising German-ness.
What many people do not realise, though, is just how Catholic the region is behind all the beer swilling and merriment. I encountered this when I hiked from Salzburg, just across the border in Austria, to the Bavarian capital of Munich, the route serving as a “decompression” mini-Camino following a much longer Camino.
