Back to Germany on 27 October 2013 Stockach, Gutach in the Black Forest

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Back to Germany on 27 October 2013 Stockach, Gutach in the Black Forest

The drive (on Sunday) to the southern border of Germany towards the Bodensee (Switzerland’s side of the Lake is called Lake Constance), was through vineyards, very neatly trimmed, orchards (mainly apples) and through beautiful undulating hills and Alps around the lakes. We can’t get over how brilliantly green the grass was. The sun was shining which was good. It was Sunday and as we drove through the little villages, we noted how quiet it was.

Before we got to Germany, we drove for about 30 minutes through the SW corner of Austria, driving through the town of Bregenz.

We drove around the southern end of the lake and then along the eastern side of the Bodensee of which about ½ of the time we could see the lake. A couple of times we stopped to take the view in and to take some photos. We noted the real nip in the air, but it was dry and the sun was still shining.

We made it to Stockach for the evening which is about 10km from the Lake at its northern tip. Before booking in, we stopped at Stockach for a walk around. This was yet another interesting little town, with frescoed facades on the buildings as well as wood-framed buildings. We saw very few people.

After we booked into the camp site, we noticed that the Park was next to a Motor Home sales yard that was having a big promotional event. There were over 100 different motor homes on display. We had a look through about a dozen, ranging from $40K-$95K each. One additional feature that we would like on our motor home is outside storage. However, the new units have large external storage but it is at the expense of the internal space. We came back to our motor home, satisfied that we liked our setup.

We had a lovely dinner in our camper and had a good night’s sleep.

The next morning (Monday) we headed NW towards the Black Forest region (Schwarzwalk in German). This is one of Germany’s most picturesque regions, densely planed with tall firs and spruces. There was a bit of autumn toning left. Often there was a little river running along the valley and the grass and crops were green. The area is famous for Black Forest Gateau (which we had when we were in Gutach) and schnapps (which we didn’t had Sheryl).

After a beautiful drive we arrived at Furtwangen (gotta love these Germany town names!), where there was a Watch Museum (Uhrenmuseum). Yes I know what you are saying – why would you go to a clock museum. Well there are 4,000 clocks and the museum has been going since 1852. There were sun dials, right through to the current day clocks. As we walked around there were cuckoos going, bells chiming, clock mechanisms clanging, theme clocks, wooden clocks, Asian clocks…..you name it, it was there. When a clock was making a noise we would go over to it to watch it. The Black Forest area was a watch making area. At one stage there was a school to teach people to become a match maker in the 1800s.

When we were in England with Kerrie, we visited a Pencil Museum (!!!! yes a Pencil Museum) but we reckon the clock museum is better. There is a museum for everything somewhere in the world.

We then drove further north onto Gutach. There was an open air museum where we saw the oldest house in Black Forest – the 16^th century Vogtsbauernhof. There was a large area set up with numerous buildings depicting the life of the region. There was a saw mill, hemp making building, local craft building and several homes that displayed how the people lived in the region.

Just as we were leaving, it started to rain. Up until then the weather was beautiful – clear, sunny and cool. We were driving to Stuttgart (120kms) and it rained lightly most of the way. The GPS took us through lots of little villages on the way to the motorway, still in the Black Forest, so our great scenery continued. We had about 70km to travel on the motorway once we entered it.

We arrived in Stuttgart at about 6.00pm and it was very dark. Day light saving in Europe had finished the day before (Sunday) so with this plus the dark clouds, and the shorter days, winter was certainly approaching. We found a camp site about 5 kms from the city’s CBD, so we were looking forward to seeing Stuttgart the next day.

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