Chris and I spent a lovely weekend in the Black Forest! Saturday morning we drove to Freiburg to explore the open market. There are streams running through the streets of Freiburg, they were used for running water back in the day. The open market was great, there were stands with fruit, vegetables, meats, cheese, bread, flowers, wood crafts, porcelain, marbles, and toys set up in the square surrounding the beautiful gothic cathedral in the altstadt. We ate crossants from the bakery for lunch, and then Chris had a bratwurst and we shared fresh blackberries from a fruit stand.
In Todtnau we walked to a grand waterfall which was very soothing! we walked from the falls to the glasblauhaus, meeting some friendly goats along the way. In the glass blower's house we explored the beautiful glass blown creations and watched a glass blowing demonstration while enjoying the warmth of the hot ovens.
At Lake Titisee we walked along the lake, ate dinner at a restaurant on the lake, and played mini golf. For dinner we had black forest trout, it was very good. The mini golf experience was impromptu, and very entertaining. The course was a random set of 18 holes that looked like they had been plunked in a backyard. The nature of the holes was quite difficult, lots of traps and slants. There was even one hole where we were supposed to fling the golf ball into a net suspended in the air! Neither of us were successful. The holes were not lined with a nice turfy material, they were plain cement, and not flat either because the golf balls would never stay still. We laughed the whole way through!
Sunday morning we ate yummy bread at the hotel breakfast and ventured outside to play life size checkers and chess! I don't even like to play checkers, so I just started sacrificing the poor guys. There were two cute British kids that had been playing checkers with their family the night before who came out to help us with our game. After Chris beat me at checkers, we moved on to chess. I like chess, but I don't really have a strategy, I just know how to move the pieces. Chris had me in checkmate in only four moves! He says he perfected it in middle school. We played again, and I held out much longer the second time. A German family came to watch us, and I'm sure they thought I was crazy when I hugged my king after he was checkmated again. We decided to move on with our travels and let the family play chess.
We drove to Furtwangen to the Deutsches Uhrenmuseum, about the only thing open on Sunday in the little town. The museum was neat, it had displays of astronomic clocks and the development of clocks through the black forest clockmaking career. There were also pocketwatches, quartz clocks, and atomic clocks. A room was devoted to mechanical musical instruments, made with the same technology as the clocks.
In Triberg we walked to another waterfall and enjoyed it's beauty. We finally found a cuckoo clock house and went in to see the large inner workings, it was cool. We went downtown and toured the Black Forest Museum. It displayed clothing styles over the years, clocks, instruments, beautiful rocks and ore, and all kinds of good stuff. There was a display of the railroad through the black forest that Chris put 50 euro cents in and we watched the little train zip in and out of mountain tunnels. We stopped for lunch after the museum and had delicious venison and spaetzle. Then we meandered down the street exploring cuckoo clock and wood carving shops.
We made it home safely and are resting after our busy weekend, preparing for another week of work.
1 comment:
Great to hear you had a fun-filled weekend of exploring! The pictures are cute and also very beautiful!! Something I always take note on is how there is hardly ever trash in the streets in Europe. This side of the pond needs to get its act together and learn how to properly throw things away.
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