The host father opens the door, but I don't recognize him.

It's been 27 years since I was in Grävenwiesbach, for the first and only time so far.

At that time we stayed in exactly this youth hostel: Mara, Simone and I.

Three school friends who hiked through the Taunus for a few days during the summer holidays, from youth hostel to youth hostel.

Florentine Fritzen

Correspondent in the Hochtaunus district

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One station was Grävenwiesbach.

On the way there we admired mushrooms that looked like golden corals.

The stage was long.

When we reached the youth hostel, we were extremely hungry.

This time I came by car.

From the small parking lot high above the village, two hiking trails lead into the deciduous forest, which now shimmers light green in spring.

I can't remember which of the two led us to the youth hostel back then.

But as soon as I stand in front of the building and peek through the windows, I have déjà vu.

Inside is a stack of mattresses – on a wooden bench.

The bank stands on a turquoise pillar, the pillar in front of a banister.

Economical snapping

I pull a photo out of my pocket.

All in all I only found three pictures from Grävenwiesbach in the album. In 1995 we still took analogue pictures and therefore sparingly.

The photo comparison is correct: Where the mattresses are piled up now, I was lying back then.

Head on Simone's lap, feet up, eyes closed.

Unfortunately, I don't remember how many kilometers we hiked.

I show the pictures to Rudolf Baue, the father of the inn.

It actually means “ladder” today, but Baues still uses the old word.

He assures me that I must have met either him or his wife Andrea back then.

"We greet all guests personally." The couple have run the hostel since 1990.

On this day at the end of last week, Baues is preparing everything so that normal hostel operations can start again at the beginning of this week - after more than a year and a half.

"We're really looking forward to it." During the Corona period, refugees were accommodated in the youth hostel, as well as in the hostels in Büdingen, Kassel, Lauterbach and Limburg.

There was not enough space in the Hessian initial reception facilities and the youth hostels could not fulfill their actual purpose during the pandemic because there were no school trips.

The hostel owners used March and the first weeks of April to renovate, replaced all mattresses, freshly wallpapered, and bought new chairs.

"Remained as it always was"

Now Baues still has to hang up a few picture frames and move the last mattresses from the stack on the bench to the dormitories.

Baues nods when he sees the picture of Simone and me on that same bench.

In general, he says, I would still recognize a few things in the house.

"The youth hostel has remained as it always was" - classically designed for school classes and larger groups, also with eight-bed rooms and showers in the corridor.

Baues talks about the almost 25 hectares of forest all around, about the experiential education that they offer.

Most classes book the program at the same time as the accommodation.

Baues can also relate to the other photos.

When we got there after the march, the sun was setting.

Soft light lay over Graevenwiesbach in an improbably romantic hue somewhere between pale pink and light orange.

Mara used the scene to strike a pose in front of the lush green summer landscape: her curls flow, her eyes shine, and she points to the sky and hills with both hands.

Baues recognizes the single-family houses on the edge of the photo.

"It's right down the road from here, past the traffic island."

Finally food

I'm even more interested in what the manager of the hostel says about the third photo: there are three plates of pizza on a table, two with margheritas and one with olives.

The chair in the middle is empty: Mara got up to take the picture.

Simone and I are sitting on either side, holding pizza wedges and looking extremely content.

Finally food.

Maybe Baues or his wife told us there was a pizzeria down in town.

We were probably too late for the hostel dinner.

That's my main memory of Grävenwiesbach: the seemingly endless search for that damn pizzeria that we finally found at the other end.

The restaurant has a different name now, says the hostel manager, but they still serve pizza there.

According to his description, I drive down the mountain, once through Grävenwiesbach, and turn off into a fairly deserted parking lot just before the roundabout at the end of town.

"Taunus-Arkaden" is written in green letters on a row of buildings and underneath it "Pizzeria Da Mimmo".

The yellow slugs of the previous restaurant have given way to transparent windows.

I peek inside.

The chairs and wallpaper are different from 1995 - like in the youth hostel.

But there are still green plants on the window sills above the radiators.

If the place didn't take an hour to open, I'd have a pizza to my girlfriends right away.

The Margherita costs five euros.