Black Forest, Lake Titisee, and Triberg

Our Memorial Day trip was to the Black Forest area.  We stayed in a nice little bed and breakfast type hotel called Hotel Moosgrund, and from there we went to Titisee-Neustadt to spend the morning at Lake Titisee, and then to Triberg, one of the most popular destinations in the Black Forest.The Hotel Moosgrund is set in the midst of some gorgeous mountains.  It’s right next to a ski lift, which I gather makes it a popular destination in the winter, but at this time of year, the mountains are brilliantly green and beautiful.

After breakfast at the hotel, we drove through the mountains to Titisee-Neustadt.  It’s a small lake, but pretty.  The town seems to be a popular place; we mainly stayed around the lake, but the town seems to be very attractive and had a lot of nice Gasthouses.  We took a paddleboat out on the lake and also took a boat tour.  One thing of note–the area we were in in close to France, and the main languages seemed to be German and French (we noticed the same thing at Europa Park watching a German show with French subtitles).  Most people we dealt with spoke enough English we could get by, but “restaurant German” at least is very useful in this area!

We spent the morning at the lake, and then moved on to Triberg, home of the highest waterfalls in Germany (except for the other falls no one knows about that have a higher drop) and the largest cuckoo clock in the world (except for the other largest cuckoo clock in the world in a town about 10 minutes away).  Somehow Triberg managed to get top billing on several things–I read in one place that when people say they are “going to the Black Forest” they probably mean Triberg!

It is a very attractive town, but extremely hilly!  It looks like the whole town is built right into the side of a steep hill.  The trails up the waterfalls are very steep.  We made it all the way to the top, but really you only need to go to the main part of the falls.  There isn’t much at the very top except a parking lot.  I guess the smart thing to do would be to park at the top and walk down (then take a bus back up to the top–at least we were going down on the way back).

The area around the falls is really pretty.  However, we were disappointed not to see any squirrels.  They make a big point about all the squirrels; the entrance kasse sells bags of peanuts to feed the squirrels and there’s a wooden statue of a squirrel at the entrance, but the wooden one is the only one we saw.  Rebecca ended up eating the peanuts.

After our trek up (and down) the waterfall trails, we were ready to try some traditional Black Forest cake.  We sat at a little outdoor cafe area and ordered our kaffe (well, Rebecca had Spezi) and kuchen, in this case “hausgemachte Schwarzwald Kirschtorte” (without the Schnapps–we were glad the waiter asked).

Before we left, we had to check out the House of 100o Clocks, to see the cuckoo clocks.  We were appalled to find out that some of the clocks now use digital sound for the cuckoos!  Fortunately, most of them were still the traditional type with the bellows.

I guess Rebecca was more interested in the figurines; her souvenir was a dog that she said looked like a wolf.  Oh, well, I guess it’s no worse than getting a ceramic squirrel and a seal from the Redwood Forest.

As we were leaving, we had to stop and see the world’s largest cuckoo clock.  We had the timing just right to see the cuckoo bird come out.

On our way back to the hotel, we ran into a detour, so we got a very roundabout tour of a lot of the Black Forest area and the mountains and valleys.  I got some nice shots of the scenery while we were lost.  (Roy:  “We’re NOT LOST!)  We were full enough not to worry about dinner at the hotel, but they were nice enough to let Roy bring a beer back to the room.

Roy and Rebecca got up early the next morning to go swimming at the hotel.  Then another nice breakfast before the drive home through the countryside.  Springtime in Germany really makes for a beautiful view.

• Madurodam

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Tags: Germany