This Sunday: The naked rambler

Wippra-Sangerhausen, Harz Mountains,Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany (Jan-Peter Boening)

The sign doesn't bode well. There's a jovial, pot-bellied man with a mullet, and a woman who looks like his mum. They're smiling broadly. They appear to be scratching their bottoms. And they're naked. The accompanying text reads "Harz Naturist Path. If you don't want to see naked people, don't go past this point!"

I'm standing at the start of the world's first naked hiking trail, and any minute now I'm going to make like mullet man, get my kit off and get yomping. Naturlich, it's in Germany. They just love being starkers, the Germans.

The country's crammed with nudist camps, and when they're bored with baring all at home they jet off to cram the nuddy beaches of the Med with pinkening Teutonic flesh. They even launched a naked airline a couple of years back, so they could let it all hang out at 30,000 feet. It's an obsession.