The Black Forest

 

 

Typical Black Forest scene

'I am sorry we don't take cards.'

I had just ordered my evening meal at what seemed to be the last outpost of civilisation before being swallowed up by the remotest of spots in the Black Forest, but thought I had better check the payment arrangements as I was out of euros. Oh dear, I really should have got some out of the cash machine in Freiburg.

'How long are you staying here, just one night? Oh that is no good, if it had been a couple of nights we could have arranged payment with your guest house.' The restaurant manager wasn't giving a message I wanted to hear.

Things were not looking good, the night was darkening outside, I was in need of a hearty dinner, like roast hog from a red hot spit with lashings of vegetables and gravy, and I was faced with a vision of an apple and a crunchy nut bar back in my pension room.

'I only know of one other establishment round here and I am sorry I don't think they will accept you,' he said, looking down at my army camouflage cargo pants.' He did not think my rugged mountain man demeanour was enough to admit me into a local eatery dressed like a Glasgow docker.

My heart was sinking fast. Why hadn't I just stayed in Freiburg where all I has to do was fall out of my accommodation with my eyes closed and find myself sitting in a restaurant with an EPOS till.

'There is another place but it is a 45 minute walk up the hill and over the other side some.' The German seemed not to think this was a good idea and was very apologetic. I bade my farewell as I stepped into the approaching night.

Sometimes in life when your heart has been tossed in the air, juggled around a little, then thrown
onto the floor and stamped on you just have to reach for those inner reserves. When you do life is full of little surprises. I'd already had one that evening when setting off from the guest house up the hill to the village for my evening meal. A car actually stopped for me and a kind German lady offered to take me up to the village, an offer I gratefully accepted. Now I had to decide whether I should walk 45 minutes further up the hill away from the village into Black Forest nocturnal gloom, not knowing what I should find, or give up and nibble my apple back at base. I had spied a local map on a board and noticed some settlement further on. I would take the harder path in search of a proper man sized meal.

Walking up those hair pin bends I was able to look out from a great height across an ocean of hill and forest swathed in developing darkness, as this was very high up, a ski area in the winter. When I got over the lip of the hill I could see far, far away over the other side, a mass of twinkling lights in the valley far below. This evening walk was actually becoming worth it especially as I espied a substantial building blazing with light in the distance. Yes I had hit the jackpot. It proved not to be a mirage for my fevered mind but a top class hotel and eatery (Hotel Die Halde). When I asked the traditionally costumed girl at reception if they took cards, and she answered in the affirmative, I could have hugged her on the spot. I followed her into the very posh restaurant, where she patiently explained the German menu to me. By the way, that's one thing you have to get used to. The Black Forest is a delight in terms of comfort and ease of travel, but not much is translated into English, so be ready for that.

It was all worth it in the end, I had been allowed in despite my casual dress and enjoyed possibly the best meal of the holiday, a tender side of beef with vegetable accompaniments and a salad, washed down with a fine German beer. Despite being peered at by stern looking portraits on the wall, the atmosphere was warm and the restaurant brimmed with people. I was in much better heart to take the 40 minute night descent back to my pension and work off the calories.

My earlier investigations on reaching the Black Forest concluded that Basel and Strasbourg were the most convenient airports, Basel to the south and Strasbourg to the north. I flew into Basel from Gatwick, then got a bus to the hauptbahnhof, then a train, which takes you north through the plain with hills far to the west and more hills edging the Black Forest immediately to your east. You change at Freiburg to strike into the heart of the Shwarzwald at Schluchsee (total fare 41 Swiss francs). Regional German trains round here are meaty beasts, red double deckers which draw you to the top floor and seem to have a bit more oomph than your average British train. You can really feel the power pulsating through the carriages as they take off from the station. And the Deutschbahn (DB) website is very good for a bit of planning, you type in your details and get swift responses including the relevant fares. In addition, at the DB office in the rail station they give you a full itinerary with all bus and train times on one print out - coordination heaven!

The Black Forest is seen as the best walking area in Germany and in the winter the walking trails are kept free of snow by the authorities. There is a slight sense of more coordination and strategic thinking than you would get in Britain! A great touch the Germans have organised in the Black Forest area, a pretty big area, is free transport on buses, trains and trams throughout the whole area for those staying in local guest houses/hotels, as tax is paid on the accommodation. Each guest house gives you a guest card which you just show to the train guard for your free travel.

I travelled all the way to Kehl on the French border for free on my last day courtesy of my guest card, before flying home from Strasburg. This meant a journey of 2 hrs 55m cost me 5.70 euro just to cover the final bit from Kehl to Strasbourg airport. First I caught the bus and train to Freiburg from my gasthof deep in the Black Forest at Hansenhof. Then I got the train from Freiburg up to Offenburg, then changed trains to a two carriage chugger to take you me to La France. This half hour journey deposits you at a little platform all on its own at Strasbourg rail station. To find it, if you enter the station from the front through the armadillo like entrance structure,  find platform 1, then take a left to find the sub platform.

The Black Forest covers that bit of south west Germany bordering Switzerland to the south and France to the west. For the traveller panging for a bit of adventure the Black Forest always seemed to have a bit of mystique, conjuring up images of endless forest trails, tumbling waters, cosy guest houses, hats with feathers, chocolate gateau, and of course cuckoo clocks. Well most of this is pretty well true. Once you get there these images prove to be just about on the button.

Freiburg, one of the larger towns, is stuck on the western edge of the Black Forest, its centre snug up to the hills that signal the beginning of this fascinating region. Being of an ancient bent, it looks like the sort of place that should be peopled by medieval minstrels in scarlet, finely coiffed merchants, city alumni flowing along in black robes and ladies in ankle length dresses. Instead it is full of tourists like me wandering its well worn streets, admiring its pastel residences and partaking of its coffee and gateau. From the railway station, der Hauptbahnhof on the western edge of the old town, just head east on foot on Bertoldstrase straight into the heart of this south German gem.

The old town is shoehorned into quite a small area and can be 'done' in an afternoon. You can quite easily do a circular walking tour of the main sites by following the map you can get at the rail station for one euro (free if you book local accommodation). The Town Hall square is a cute spot with the old and new town halls and St Martin's church. Here you can sit at an outside café and watch the punters go by. You may be interested to know if you're a history buff that Erasmus of Rotterdam none the less lived in Freiburg for a while in the House of the Whale in Franziskanergasse. The cathedral square (Munsterpaltz) is a highlight with its Munster market, surrounded by quaint multi coloured buildings straight out of Grimms fairy tales, especially the red coloured Historic Merchants Hall with its pointed turrets. Is that Rumpelstiltskin's fairy tale girl hanging her hair out of the window?

For two euro you can ascend the circular staircase to the tower of the cathedral, although be warned, it's quite a climb and leaves little room for two way traffic. But the views from the top are worth it. This cathedral took 300 years to build by the way! To get to the stairs we wandered into the midst of the cathedral, a gloomy interior for a wet Sunday afternoon, or any afternoon, the whole place seemed under-lit, then out again to find the entrance at the front of the cathedral. I recommend the large sausage in a roll with piles of onions from one of the market stalls in the square.

If you take a trip in the cable car (Schlossbergbahn) at the north east edge of the old town, or walk up if you fancy, you reach a very nice café/restaurant perched on wooded slopes with great views over the town, although they were not so great when I was up there as the rain was pummelling down from an unforgiving sky. Nevertheless a fine place to bring your mum for Sunday tea. To the south, on the same wooded slopes is a network of footpaths slicing through the greenery, and one of those ubiquitous German beer gardens with a fine viewing platform over the city. You can access this area by the bridge over the road from the south east corner of the Aldstadt by the city gate, Schabentor. In the south of the Aldstadt is a stretch of canal which adds to the city's quaintness. Incidentally, a feature of the walking streets are sunken drainage channels which would have yellow jacketed Health and Safety chappies going mad with red and white tape in Britain. Here you just use your common sense and step over them.

Historic merchants Hall - architectural eye candy!

On my lasr day I happened to be in Freiburg on a Sunday and how quiet it was, as the Germans still practice the Sabbath rest. It reminded me of what England used to be like before deregulation, when having a day of rest was not just seen as a lost opportunity for the market economy. On balance I think the Germans have it right in this area.

From  Freiburg you can get the train right up into the Black Forest, snaking south east, upwards and onwards through lush valleys, an exciting gorge alongside the main road, and then in to a German lake District as one reaches the towns of Titisee and Shluchsee. This railway is a marvel of engineering, just as you'd expect in Germany, especially where it has tunnelled through the sides of the steep gorge before reaching the lakes, a gem of a train ride into the heart of the Schwarzwald.

Titisee seems more the town for posers and promenaders, with smart cars and flash bikes, it has more of an air of the place to be to be noticed. One expected celebrities to step out of the pages of the Bild and onto the walkways. Titisee has some tempting shops for those who would like to buy a cuckoo clock, all attractive decorated wooden boxes on various themes and priced up to the several hundreds of pounds or more. There are also plentiful witchy puppets based on the old hag on a broomstick type idea.

Schluchsee is more of a quieter, gentler town, more of a stately sister to Titisee. Again Lake Titisee is perhaps more attractive and plump with desirable residences than Shluchsee Lake, although the latter is the biggest lake in the Black Forest. But Schluchsee has its own attractions including an Aquafun waterpark with its own water slide and swimming pool. We had a group ticket for the Aquapark but alas on the day the sun decided to stay out of the limelight and I had no incentive to swim unless I can catch some rays between dips. There are rowing boats, canoes and 'phut phut' motor boats for hire.

Schluchsee has a fine upstairs café in the centre of town opposite the church where you can sample Black Forest gateau in all its glory. I somehow got through the week without eating one piece, but can testify from observation that you get served a truly giant slice which appears more cream than sponge. I did try to find some Black Forest gateau on the last day in Freiburg, as surely a Black Forest ten commandment is to eat such during your holiday, but I failed miserably and had to resort to eating a pale imitation in the railway café, a large slice of cream and chocolate cake. I surely should have been arrested by the Black Forest police for such a failure!

We stayed up the road from Schluchsee in Dresselbach, in an old farmhouse dating back to the 1500s.
Our old farmhouse, 'Lindenhof,' was ideal for groups. Perched high above Schluchsee, about 3.5km out along a minor road, it is on the large side, with many different sized rooms. We dined together for breakfast and evening meals in a large room downstairs. Just to the left of the dining room entrance is a picture of the Lindenhof in 1942 when it was a 'Gasthof.' The Lindenhof is well equipped with a swimming pool, games room and sauna. The games room table tennis table proved to be a hit in the evenings, with knock out competitions most nights. An 'old pro' dusted off his bat and made a late entrance during the week to blow away plucky opposition of some of the youngsters. A table football table provided further entertainment and gave me the opportunity to experience an abysmal wipe-out!



Road to Lindenhof complete with rainbow!

Most of my holiday was spent with a group of about 50 providing good company aplenty. We went on various excursions, either walking or by bus/train. One trip was to Triberg, where we visited Germany's highest waterfalls. The drive to Triberg was a treat in itself, seeing the Black Forest in all its glory, endless woodland riding massive waves of bright green sunlit hills. The Black Forest itself is not very black, rather the dark green of the evergreen forest crowning the heights with the verdant green of the lower slopes contrasting beautifully. There is an absence of as many of the borders between fields you get in Britain, especially an absence of hedges.

We stopped en route at a clock museum, the Black Forest being the home of the cuckoo clock. Now you might think you have to be over 60 to visit a clock museum, but that would be a naughty thought, because our group of very young to not so young had a very interesting talk from the museum guide about different types of clock, both musical and non musical, including massive timepieces which pumped out music and disgorged figurines and cuckoos from all sorts of places. We were told at one point that clock marketing persuaded all good Germans to have a clock in  every room in the house!



Some proper timepieces

And so on to the waterfall, where the waters of the Gutach plunge over 160m in seven cascades. We were deposited at the top by the coach, and then left to get to the bottom under our own steam, not a particularly strenuous task especially if you sit down to eat at one of the numerous spots provided. Woodland straggles around the waterfalls and you are presented with a range of routes down, extending in time from three quarters of an hour to one and a half hours. I took issue with these timings, like sell by dates they were pushing extremities. One and a half hours maybe if you had a wooden leg and were visually challenged. The scale of the map you are given also  seemed slightly far fetched and did not add up entirely to reality. One of our number bought some red squirrel food as the area is a haven for such creatures but the only red squirrels we saw were a giant wooden one and the odd picture. How impolite of them not to turn up for the feast. At the bottom you find yourself right in the town centre, an attractive destination for all Black Forest visitors.

Back on the bus, we made our way to a 'giant cuckoo clock' attached to a cuckoo clock factory shop. The size of the side of a building, the clock promised to impress us with a giant cuckoo appearing on the hour with a hopefully ear piercing 'cuckoo' resounding through the valley. There we stood expectantly with our cameras, waiting for the moment. Out stepped the cuckoo on cue, to emit what can only be described as an apologetic sigh. Indeed if the giant wooden cuckoo had keeled over and expired on the spot, it would have been no surprise. If it was possible to lose the will to live from disappointment, this was the moment, but of course we laughed it off.

The Feldberg is not only the highest point in the Black Forest but the highest mountain in Germany outside the Alps, a substantial peak rising to about 4898ft above sea level bang in the middle of a winter ski area. This was the focus of another excursion by train, bus and finally by cable car. Unfortunately we were somewhat delayed as half the German population had decided to get on the bus up the mountain at the same time as us, and it was a bendy bus! So half of us got left behind, although a German lady assured me there would be a 'zweite' bus, as indeed there was. But that gave us enough time to partake of coffee and desserts at the railway café. Later as a reunited group we made our way to the top  by cable car where we admired the scenery. This was followed by a hearty walk down through forested slopes, with a stop at a beautiful natural lake sculpted into the mountain side.

Another day was spent visiting Titisee, followed by a walk alongside the lake's forested slopes to Feldberg station. Glimpses of a attractive chateau on the far side stirred up the desirability index. I suspect the rich and famous count around here is quite high. From the station we got the train to Aha. Yes that is the proper name and sounds very un German. From here we got a lake steamer back to Schluchsee.

From Lindenhof one morning we set out to walk through the forest to Fischbach, where we found a very amenable tavern with a great patio looking down over the valley. Here you gorge on cheesecake, gateau or plum pie for the genuine Black Forest experience -  a slice of decadence. Pressing on, we got to Aha later, a settlement on Lake Schluchsee.

I stayed on an extra couple of days after my holiday friends left for home. The town of Schluchsee took me to its bosom for one more night in the form of the Pension Gebele, 28 euro per night. I have to attest to a very comfortable bed, although the shower was one of those annoying units where the shower head is fixed to the side of the bath. OK for a midget, but not for a six-footer like me.