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Published: July 26th 2010
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We decided to leave Fussen early so we could drive along Lake Constance on the way to the Black Forest. We stopped just outside of Lindau for breakfast/brunch. Once we were fuelled we put Konstanz into our GPS (Karen - Richie’s other woman) and hit the road until she took us to a ferry stop! We decided to save our pennies and as we weren’t in a rush we continued driving along the lake instead of getting the ferry. It was a lovely drive! The lake is massive! There’s a bike ride all the way around which we’d like to do one day (just another thing on the list!). We stopped in a small town near the end of the lake (Bodman-Ludwigshafen) to stretch our legs and take in the view. We nearly had to call the German version of RACQ to come and rescue us as the car wouldn’t start but we got going eventually.
When we arrived in Konstanz we wandered around the old town. The tower/clock on the train station was pretty amazing as well as the main church, but after seeing so many cathedrals/churches/monasteries we are not as easily impressed any more! Apart from a special
few they are all starting to blur into one in our minds. There were some Roman ruins out the front of the church which Konstanz was built on. It still amazes us how so many towns and cities are built right over the top of all the old Roman ruins. Along our walk we came across a very unusual water feature (see pic). It’s a bit of an eyesore but it gave us a good laugh! We then decided to leave Germany for a moment and walk over the border into the Swiss town of Constance! As we have mentioned in previous blogs, it’s still quite unreal for us Aussies to just walk/ride/drive across a border. There was a checkpoint but they didn’t even look twice at us. Maybe Richie’s beard doesn’t look that dodgy after all 😊! It was a very quick trip to Switzerland but we’d be back soon enough!
After Konstanz we were both very excited to hit the autobahn again and head to the Black Forrest (Schwarzwald). Our accommodation was on the outskirts of the forest in a family run pub/hotel in Aichhalden. The couple that run the hotel were so nice, they really put
the extra effort in to making your stay enjoyable! The rooms were huge! Then there was dinner, to quote Francesco again “Oh, my godt” the meals were huge and delicious! If you’re driving around the black forest and looking for some good cheap accommodation look up landgasthof engel hotel, but maybe not if you’re an animal lover. Lysh was a little disturbed by all the animal skins on the wall in our room but the owner advised us that this is normal in the Black Forest. We did notice that a lot of houses have antlers on the outside. We guess hunting is a popular activity here. We had our first taste of the black forest when we went for an evening walk near the hotel. It was really peaceful and just what we needed to rejuvenate!
We had planned a big walk for the following day but the rain changed our plans. This didn’t dampen our spirits though and we went to a beautiful little town called Schiltach. Our guide book informs us this is the prettiest town in the whole of the black forest. It certainly was very pretty with old style buildings and a river running
through the town.
Our next black forest stop was Triberg (named so because it’s framed by 3 mountains). The rain had cleared slightly so we took the opportunity to do a short walk which took us to the top of Germany’s highest waterfalls and through the forest. We bought some peanuts to try and hand feed the local squirrels, but they must be smart and don’t come out on rainy days. We ate the nuts ourselves instead! As the heavens opened we decided to wait it out in cafes and shops. There are some amazing cuckoo clocks in the shops in Triberg. We were tempted to buy one but were driven insane by the sound of them after a while! Just outside of town we saw 2 cuckoo clocks (one which claims to be the world’s largest and one which claims to be the former world’s largest!).
Our final stop was a nearby town called Titisee which is very touristy compared to the others. Titisee’s main drawcard is a beautiful glacial lake. It looked amazing so we tried to hire an electric boat to cruise around but business must have been bad that day and he was closing
shop early. After exploring the beautiful little town we had a HUGE piece of cake. Of course it had to be black forest cake in the black forest! Yum!!!
As we left town we saw some huge house-barn combos which our guide book had said to look out for. These places are massive!! I’m not sure that we would want to share our house with the livestock though! At least you could always blame the cows for an unpleasant odours!
After a long day of driving around through the windy roads from town to town we decided to have an early night and head back to the hotel to book some accommodation in Switzerland. We didn’t get to do the big forest walk that we had planned but it was a great day!
The next morning we drove up to Stuttgart and dropped off the car so we could get the train into Switzerland. Auf Wiedersehen Germany (for the 2nd time!), we hope to return again some day!
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