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...

Why is the Black Forest called that way?

Well, as we found out one gloomy weekend in May it is because it is pretty darm dark in there, especially this May when winter was still officially there and hopes of sunshine were crushed every single day.

We had decided to take advantage of a long bank holiday weekend to go to Germany and spend 2 nights in the Black Forest with some friends. As we found out that weekend, we only live 15 minutes from the German border (and after almost 2 years we did not have a clue we were that close) and 90 minutes away from the South border of the Black Forest. We broke our short journey in Titisee-neustadt as Baby Suisse was having a very bad day and had decided 20 minutes into the journey that he had had enough. After a spot of lunch, I had imagined an afternoon of strolling along the shore taking pictures and buying souvenirs but thought the better of it after realising we hadn't packed anything warm or waterproof to wear at all. We have got quite good at packing everything we're likely to need for Baby Suisse on trips away but somehow forget about ourselves. Never mind, we said goodbye to Titisee after a last chuckle...

Another 20 minutes up the road, we unpacked our things in the hotel we were staying in Vöhrenbach (nice and dog/kid friendly, we recommend!) and decided to take advantage of the sun briefly coming out for a short walk in the area, skipping up the hill, singing and...well not quite but you get the jist.

The first evening was spent eating far too much schnitzel and trying to convince Baby Suisse to go the fuck to sleep (do you know this children bed time story? GENIUS!). Baby Suisse, we realised, does not like not sleeping in his own bed so ended up with us.

After a very short night's sleep and a breakfast of cheese, bread, eggs and meat (why do you always feel obliged to eat 3 times as much for breakfast when you're away from home just because it's free and there??), we set off to Triberg for a hike around the waterfall.

The Triberg waterfall is one of the highest in the whole of Germany and was impressive given the surreal amount of rain we've had this "Spring".

Annoyingly, you have to pay to see the waterfall but we took the opportunity to buy a bag of peanuts at the gate to feed the squirrels. Alf was going nuts for the squirrels, he is very keen on them shall we say...

We stopped for a coffee near a big pond and a spot of duck feeding...

Because of the light rain, the site wasn't too busy on that day and we thoroughly enjoyed the hike in the woods around the waterfall. Not much to see in terms of wildlife...

...but the many different sights of the waterfall were worth it.

And yes of course, we saw plenty of cuckoo clocks too, but that'll be the topic of another post :-)

My first trip to Germany!

Morgen mittenand!

I seem to always be lagging a week behind these days…this post is about our short trip to Konstanz in Germany last week end. A couple of friends we knew from Glasgow have recently moved there and we are very pleased to have some good friends living nearby. So on Saturday morning, Alf, Mr T and I jumped on a train to Kontanz for an overnight stay.

After a quick dip in Bodensee for Alf…

… we sat down for a lunch of German cold meat and Dutch cheese (our friend Marc is Dutch). Feeling full and rather content, we then all went for a long walk in the nearby woods to collect mushrooms. I wouldn’t know where to start collecting mushrooms, but our friend Katja spent a lot of time as a child collecting mushrooms in Russia and she knows her do’s and don’ts.  We didn’t collect any of the mushrooms below as Katja had her eyes set on only picking a type of orange mushroom which name I forgot (honey mushroom maybe?) and which I wasn’t quick enough to photograph. Katja was on a mission and it was amazing to see how quickly she could spot them in a layer of leaf litter! Anyhow, the picture below will give you a good idea of the variety of fungi we encountered in a couple of hours in a relatively small area.

The following morning was spent walking around the old centre of Konstanz. Being Sunday, none of the shops were open (to my disappointment…Konstanz is definitely a cheaper shopping destination than Zürich!) but we thoroughly enjoyed having a stroll. What really surprised us in Konstanz was the architecture and the “OMG, am I tripping on LSD?” works of art throughout the town. Take the “Triumphal Arch” for example:

I don’t even know where to start!! Two fat elderly people sat in a jacuzzi, a naked woman exhibiting herself to semi-human semi-seal monsters, a monkey with a steering wheel and many other caricatures! The fountain is the creation of contemporary artist Peter Lenk.There must be some logical explanation for this I have failed to obtain…

We thought that was the one weird-and-whacky fountain in Konstanz but we were proven wrong 30 minutes later when we stumbled across this one in Marktstätte:

2 peacocks, a life-size horse, rabbits with fish tail spurting water and a lady with a bird on her head and nipples coming out of her top! After searching on the Konstanz tourist information website, I found that this is called the Imperial Fountain (Kaiserbrunnen). It was created in 1897 by the sculptor Hans Baur, but the fountain lost its original decorative figures during the 1940s. The artist couple Barbara and Gernot  Rumpf  redesigned the structure and concealed within it a number of allusions to Konstanz’s past. The website (visit link) tells us:

 "The Emperor Fountain in Marktstätte assembles several figures and scenes that tell of the medieval history of the Holy Roman Empire in reference to Konstanz. We see portraits of the Emperors Friedrich Barbarossa, Otto the Great, and Maximilian around the central column. A bust of Maximilian's wife Bianca Sforza sits on the balustrade. The little bird on her bonnet at intervals spits water into Maximilian's outstretched hand. A pair of pigeons is classified as bishop and emperor, religious and worldly power. The document of the Konstanz Peace Treaty of 1183 is represented in bronze. The three-headed peacock with his three tiaras stands for the three Popes and Antipopes during the Great Schisma before the Council.”

Erm....interesting...The last water fountain we stumbled across that morning seemed very demure in comparison.

I must admit that these random artefacts and the lovely architecture in the old town make Konstanz a very interesting city to visit and walk around.

We will be back!!