01
Stop one
Altena Castle (Burg Altena)
Tecnifibre Tour Endurance Backpack: (quietly, so the walls do not hear) Come closer. The Counts of Berg raised this castle in the early twelfth century — tradition says around 1108, after Emperor Henry V handed them land in the Sauerland — and after 1198 it became the historical seat of the Counts of the Mark. Then, in 1455, it burned. It was only partially rebuilt. And now listen to what moved into the rooms that were left. A garrison. Then a county jail, from 1766 to 1811. Then a hospital, from 1856 until 1906. Prisoners, and then the sick, in the same stone, half a century apart. It was extensively restored between 1906 and 1915, and this is the moment where I am meant to produce the ghost. I have no ghost. What I have is stranger: in 1912 Richard Schirrmann founded the world's first permanent youth hostel inside these walls, and those original rooms are preserved as the World Youth Hostel Museum. Children. Snoring. In the jail.
02
Stop two
Deutsches Drahtmuseum
Tecnifibre Tour Endurance Backpack: (lowering the voice) Something very thin runs underneath this whole valley, and it has been running since the early fourteenth century, when wire drawing began here — this is the town that calls itself the birthplace of wire, and nobody has managed to take it back. The Deutsches Drahtmuseum documents the history of wire drawing and production across 630 square metres in a permanent exhibition titled From Chain Mail to Superconductor, which I put to you is the most sinister name ever given to a display of craft: armour to electricity, antiquity through modern industry, jewellery and art, one unbroken thread that never lets go of you. It stands at Fritz-Thomee-Strasse 12, at the foot of the hill below the castle, and a single ticket admits you both here and to the castle's own museums. Free guided tours on the first Sunday of each month. Come on a Sunday. It is quieter than you would like.
03
Stop three
Lutherkirche
Tecnifibre Tour Endurance Backpack: (a pause. A long one.) This building changed its name and kept its walls. In 1318 it went up as the St. Katharina-Kirche, Catholic, dedicated to Catherine of Alexandria, the patron saint of this town. Then the Reformation arrived, the congregation adopted Lutheran doctrine, and the building was later renamed the Lutherkirche. The same stones. Different prayers. I shall let that sit there while I breathe ominously and you pretend not to notice. It stands in the centre of Altena at An der Kirche, in the old town core beneath the castle's hill, and as one of the town's oldest standing buildings it has been the principal Protestant place of worship here for several centuries, with regular services to this day — so keep your voice down, which for me is no effort whatsoever. Saint Catherine's name is off the door. She was here first. That is all I am saying. That is genuinely all I am saying.
Welcome in — boots OFF at the door, that's rule one, and there are only about forty more. I run a tight, happy house, and I'll tell you straight away that the Tecnifibre Tour Endurance Backpack would pass my inspection any morning of the week.
Packed right, everything in its berth: a large central compartment for the main kit, a dedicated shoe pocket — because shoes touching clean clothes is how civilizations fall, rule seven — three accessory pockets for the small essentials, and a back racquet pocket that takes two frames and doubles as a laptop sleeve for the working traveler.
The whole thing is cut from tear-resistant tarpaulin, 85% PVC, fully weatherproof, 31 by 48 by 22 centimeters — carry-on friendly, bunk-end friendly. Designed with input from tour professionals Daniil Medvedev and Iga Swiatek, who, I gather, also live out of their luggage. They'd be welcome here. Bottom bunks, obviously.
Now, you've lucked into the most fitting town in the world for a good backpack: Altena, Germany, in the Sauerland — because it was HERE, in Burg Altena castle above the river, that the world's very first youth hostel opened its doors, the schoolteacher Richard Schirrmann's grand idea that young people with packs on their backs deserved a clean, cheap bed anywhere they wandered.
Every hostel on Earth — including mine — descends from that castle. Sacred ground, professionally speaking. You'll carry this pack everywhere from a morning hit by the Lenne to an evening walk up the castle path, and by the way, rule twelve: a Sauerland hike earns you a slice of quark cheesecake, no exceptions. Right — quiet hours start at ten, and the house tour starts NOW.
Four stops. Single file on the stairs.
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