Day 4: Off to Schwarzwald!

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Today is the day we get our cuckoo clock! We had planned to leave by 7:00, giving us ample time to drive to Germany and other explorations on the way back. We both had such a terrible sleep, that we opted for an extra hour in bed and so we left around 8:30 instead. A few minutes later, we were out on the open road, and 90 minutes later we were in historic, quaint Triberg. Our first stop, the Original World's Largest Cuckoo Clock. We loved this place when we were there a few years ago, and the lady there spent so much time explaining how things worked and showing us around the house-sized cuckoo clock. Turns out it was her father-in-law who had originally built it. We always wished we had bought a clock when we were there, so we decided to make the trip back to buy one there, even though we could've bought one elsewhere, even in Switzerland. Thankfully they were open, and the same lady was there to assist us with our purchase. She explained in great detail about the clock, how to get it to operate, and how to take care of it. We thought there might be an international incident when Jon nearly drove off the parking area right INTO the world's largest cuckoo clock, but thankfully he managed to hit the brakes before that happened and get the car into reverse instead.

With that taken care of, we spent a little more time in Triberg, once again seeing Europe's tallest waterfall and walking the beautiful streets. The return trip was driven by Donna. At first the GPS took us on a wild goose chase which seemed to be going in circles, but we got to see some very beautiful German countryside that we never would have seen otherwise! We finally ended up on a highway, and lucky for Donna, it had sections of unlimited speed limits, AKA the autobahn! Take it from us, that little 6 speed chicken got up to 160 no problem 😊

Our next stop was Basel, Switzerland, which is a city that borders on 3 countries - Switzerland, Germany, and France. The guidebook didn't give it much credit, but we found it to be a very beautiful city, with spectacular views off the Rhine River. We don't have any pictures to prove it, however, as by the time we parked our car in some obscure parkade, we couldn't seem to find the area back on foot. The memories will just be in our heads we suppose! We did take a nice long walk looking for it, and came across a nice church in the meantime, and we do have pictures of that 😊

By that time, we were ready to head back to Zürich. On our way, we hit up IKEA (had to check out and see if it was the same as ours!!) and came out with meatballs and another larger Co-op grocery store. We are now ready for Christmas dinner.

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Photos

Waterfall in Triberg
It's much taller than this, but conditions weren't optimal for pictures!

Triberg
A view down the main street of Triberg

Cuckoo clock
The newest addition to our bird family!

Church in Basel
Outside

Church in Basel
Inside - stained glass