Black Forest (Schwarzwald)

Last Thursday was a holiday so we took off Friday to make a long weekend in Germany's Black Forest, or Schwarzwald. As the name would suggest, it's an area heavily forested, offering lots of natural beauty. The trip there started with an 8 hour drive through pouring rain, my irritability still intact, and my boyfriend making comments about my driving that annoyed me. By end of the day though, my irritability subsided, the rain cleared, and everyone was happy. After checking into our hotel, we strolled around Freiburg. I was a bit concerned that perhaps I made a mistake by deciding to stay in the city when I hate being surrounded by concrete. However, Freiburg was a typical charming Germany city with colorful buildings and cobblestone streets. Most places in Schwarzwald were no more than an hour's drive from the city, so it worked out pretty well.

The second day was spent mostly around Triberg. Germany's heighest waterfall was there, so we had to check it out. It is a pretty nice waterfall that is cascading waterfall so you see only bits at a time. The entrance to the waterfall is right smack in the middle of town center though, and is accessed by many tourists, so it wasn't a place you would hang out for long. We went from there then to the World's Second Largest Cuckoo Clock House in the town next to Triberg. It was a cute little house we saw coming into Triberg. It was still advertised as the World's Largest though, and we found out only after going in that a bigger clock house had been constructed in Triberg. We saw one clock house though, and that was enough. I preferred to spend the rest of the day hiking instead of chasing clock houses.

The best hiking we did was on our last day there, in Feldberg. We went up to the top of the highest peak in Schwarzwald, and then hiked down and around Feldsee, a lake in the valley. The hike to the lake was absolutely beautiful, as was the area surrounding the lake. There was no one around us on the trail either, so it was great. Before going to Feldberg though, we stopped in Titisee, a lake town. We... or mostly he... spent time rowing around the lake. Ahh... there's nothing like watching your man flex his muscles while you sit back and enjoy the view. I did give rowing a try, just to feel like I contributed some, but I didn't last more than 5 minutes each time. Darn ores were too big :P

The drive back ended up being quite long because of traffic and bad weather. I did get to stop in Ramstein though to do some shopping and offset the weekend calorie loss with Taco Bell, Cinnabon and a large cup of Dr. Pepper. I also bought the American Idol version of the Karaoke Revolution so looking forward to trying it out. Yep, this weekend couldn't have been better :)

Pictures are here.

ps. Schwarzwald has the cleanest public toilets I've ever been in in Europe - and they are all free!!!