I'm going cuckoo!

A trip to the Black Forest would not be complete without setting foot at least once in one of the many cuckoo clocks shops in the area (literally everywhere!!).

There must be widespread fear of industrial espionage in the cuckoo clock industry as I got sent off from the shop above in Titisee for taking a photo of the clocks on display...

NOT impressed with your attitude!

You would have to try very hard in the lower Black Forest area to not stumble across one of these clocks. You don't even have to step into a shop, even houses dress up as cuckoo clocks!

While in Triberg, we checked out the shop attached to the world's largest cuckoo clock in Schonachbach. That's a controversy in itself as 2 different places within less than 3 kilometers were claiming the title, and a quick look on Wikipedia informs me that these giant cuckoo clocks are popping out all over the place. 

The size of a house, it isn't a bad looking cuckoo clock but the cuckoo itself is proportionally underwhelming. We waited for the hour to strike for 3 minutes, prepared to be amazed and could not believe how little thought was put into this. Here's a (boring) video of the world's most boring cuckoo in action.

The shop itself at the back of the clock is very nice though and people were a lot friendlier. I could take pictures of the different clocks and ended up buying some little hand-carved and painted nutcrackers to put on our Christmas tree. Alongside the more traditional clocks...

...were some very funky and modern-looking ones!

There were clocks to cater for all sorts of tastes and living room sizes, including this enormous one:

We did manage (after much hesitation on my part) to go home without a cuckoo clock as it's one thing finding them picturesque in a shop,and another thing having them on your living room wall between 2 IKEA bookcases. Very pretty things though...