The threatened rain arrived overnight and it was hammering down this morning. That rather put pay to our plans of going on a hike in the Black Forest. Instead, with waterproofs and umbrellas we decided on a driving tour of small towns that Colin had earmarked as particularly interesting in the area.
The rain was pretty unrelenting although it made for some photogenic low clouds between the hills of the forest. I had not realise quite how high we were here but realised at the big number of ski slopes and out of season chairlifts that we passed on our journey.
Our first stop was Durbach which was a sleepy town (although to be honest that doesn’t narrow it down). With the rain still heavy, we spotted a bakery with cafe attached and stopped for a coffee and slice of cherry pie for Colin and apple pie for me. I temporarily lost/misplaced my umbrella which caused great mirth to the staff and I bought some chocolate as a gift for our friend John who gave us a lot of advice of Germany whilst we were planning our trip. The cafe seemed to be the highlight of the town so we drove onto to Haslach. This town was a little bigger and some shops were open and there were some people around. We discovered the old monastery and the ‘Rathaus’ (town hall - I love the name) next door to which was… another cafe so we had lunch there - nice roll and an apple juice.
From here we planned to finish off exploring the town of Zell am Harmersbach but detoured to a war memorial that Colin had read about in one of the leaflets we had picked up in the tourist office in Haslach. It was a memorial to people who had died in the Vulkan mining concentration camp in the area and I was a bit dubious about visiting. I was even more concerned when the car SatNav decided to take us off-roading up a muddy track, only wide enough for one vehicle and with a sheer drop to the right. There was no way to turn the car around so the only option was to keep going. Luckily this was apparently a ‘short-cut’ (which we didn’t actually want) and eventually we reached a tarmac road which took us up into the forest to a little deserted parking area. A short walk bought us to the memorial which was impressive but not overstated and it seemed sad it was in the middle of the forest. There were good interpretation board but all in German so we need to translate when we get back.
Back to the car and the bird song was amazing, as it is in many places we’ve been. My bird count is now over thirty although they are all fairly common.
This time when we drove to our final town, we made sure we did not take the SatNav suggesting of the muddy track back to the main road.
Our final stop of the day was Zell am Harmersbach. It is a pretty town although quite busy but the most interesting thing was the number of storks nesting on chimneys rather like in towns in Spain. We wandered around the town to see the various old buildings before heading on our journey home. We stopped briefly at a ‘Penny’ supermarket as we didn’t think we’d make it back to the ‘Edeka’ before 8.00pm. There was rather a nasty altercation between an aggressive German (who did look rather like he had come from he third Reich) and a couple of Asian men who had not appeared to do anything wrong. It was pretty scary and at one stage I thought he was gong to hit them but thank goodness he did not. I was sad to see this.
We drove back a different route as Colin is trying to avoid repeating routes and this took us on an amazing drive through the Black Forest up to great heights. We stopped at a high point (where paragliders take launch off) and there were amazing views over the forest and amazing amounts of cloud. We were literally in the clouds and the effect as the trees appeared and disappeared was amazing - I hope I have some decent photos (or even one or two). The drive was impressive all the way and for much of it we were driving through cloud.
By the time we got back to our apartment we have now driven over on thousand miles since we left home. Classy home cooked dinner of fried anchovies and rocket to start and pizza and salad for main course!
