Germany, Autobahn to Heidelberg

Despite the gloomy weather prediction of the restaurant manager the previous evening we opened the metal shutters on our last day to see some promising patches of blue sky and whilst we had our final breakfast the sun began to shine and it looked as though we might finally get some better weather.

As we packed our bags before checking out and leaving we had to decide on an itinerary that would pick up as many towns and villages as possible for the blue sky pictures that we wanted and we eventually agreed on Gengenbach and Freiburg and once we had paid up and said goodbye we headed out of Offenburg on the familiar route south.

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Germany, Across the Rhine to Strasbourg

“Rising above the high-pitched roofs with multi-storied dormer windows, several churches stand out on the skyline. The cathedral, whose single spire dominates the Alsatian plain, and the four old churches …  fit coherently into an old quarter that exemplifies medieval cities.”                                                          UNESCO

We parked the car in an underground car park close to a part called Petite France which is a popular corner of the city where the full flowing river splits up into a number of canals, and cascades through bridges in a small area of attractive half-timbered houses and cobbled streets and we walked through crooked lanes and alleys that followed the southern loop of the river that surrounds the old city.

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Germany, Across the Rhine to Alsace

“What is it that gives a frontier its magic? Not the fact that that it is a territorial or political boundary, for these are artificial, dictated by history.  Perhaps it is language that gives to the crossing of a frontier its definitive flavour of voyage.  Whatever the answer the magic is there.  The traveller’s heart will beat to a new rhythm, he will examine the strange new coinage.  Everything will seem to be changed, including the air he breathes”                                                           Lawrence Durrell

It was another disappointing morning and there was a slight drizzle in the air but the weather looked brighter to the west so we decided to drive in that direction and visit the French city of Strasbourg on the other side of the Rhine.

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Germany, Schiltach, a Perfect Black Forest Village

Triberg didn’t excite us today in the way it had twelve months previously and so we didn’t stay for all of the hour and a half that the parking ticket allowed and we left the town and headed for nearby Shiltach.

Leaving the town we turned off the main road at Sankt Georgan and began to climb towards the town of Schramberg and then I had another disagreement with the lady navigator in the satnav.  For some inexplicable reason she directed us off the obvious way and took along an alternative route along some very minor roads.  There was no explanation for this so I strenuously questioned her competence, shouted at her and then turned her off and plotted my own route back to Schramberg and then to Shiltach where we arrived soon after.

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Germany, The Black Forest

We had selected the Rammersweier Hoff hotel again mostly because it was inexpensive but also on account of its location about half way between the main cities of Baden-Baden and Freiburg and on the western edge of the forest in the Rhine Valley.

We had enjoyed staying there the previous year because it is a homely place, very traditional with Teutonic décor and an interesting collection of Black Forest ornaments, friendly staff and a great restaurant.  In the morning we had breakfast in the brightly coloured conservatory and there was a good selection of hot and cold food so we filled ourselves up on the basis that this would last us through until evening meal.

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Black Forest, Schiltach and a Blizzard

At breakfast on the final morning the sun was shining and there was a blue sky so we weighed up the options and decided to drive through the northern half of the Black Forest and spend the afternoon in Baden-Baden before catching the late flight home.  Unfortunately by the time we had packed our bags and checked out of the Rammersweir Hoff the sunshine had disappeared and had been replaced by the familiar grey sky.  (There was no additional charge for the repair of the cuckoo clock by the way).

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Black Forest, Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte

The station at Triberg was a little way out of town so we caught a bus with lots of other people into a busy main street full of activity but whatever was going on must have just finished because within only a few minutes Triberg was just as quiet as Villingen.

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Black Forest, Badische Schwarzwaldbahn

I woke early in the morning and now that the effects of the wine had almost completely worn away immediately recalled the incident with the cuckoo clock and I worried that I might have broken it and would be presented with a hefty repair bill when we checked out.  Wide awake I checked the weather and instead of the blue sky that we had predicted there had been a significant fall of snow and it was still coming down thick and fast.

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Black Forest, Freiburg and a Snow Blizzard

Freiburg, or to give it its full title, Freiburg im Breisgau,  is one of the famous old German university towns, was incorporated in the early twelfth century and developed into a major commercial, intellectual, and ecclesiastical centre of the upper Rhine region.

Statistically it is the sunniest and warmest city in all of Germany but that certainly wasn’t the case today.  As we parked the car and walked towards the city centre there was a steel grey sky, a spiteful wind and stinging sleet, the pavements were wet and the colour was bleached out of the buildings and streets and after just a couple of minutes we knew that it was unlikely that we would be seeing the best of Freiburg today.

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Black Forest, Cuckoo Clocks

Triberg looked stunning under a covering of fresh snow and we started out to walk the main road which was difficult in the snow and ice because the town is very hilly and the main tourist road runs up a steep straight incline toward the waterfall at the top.  The snow on the path to the waterfall was completely undisturbed and we were the first to use it this morning as we made our way towards the lower and middle falls.

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