Titisee - Friday 16th May 2009 - Our Last Day.

Our last day in town before the long drive back home.

We thought it might be quite nice to, you know, see the town we were staying in rather than driving for miles. The sun was out and it was a beautiful day so strolling was in order.

We saw the local ice rink, a lake that (in May was far from being frozen) and Anna made friends with small animal!

Triberg Falls - Friday 15th May 2009 - Wet, Really Wet

The Triberg Falls are the tallest waterfalls in Germany, and as we discovered, if you go on the wrog day, they are certainly the wettest.

The day started out okay, a little bit grey and just as we arrived, the sun came out. Brilliant, ditch the fleese nice wander round in the sun,..... well,... we got most of the way to the falls, about a ten minute walk before the heavens opened. The pathways became streams and everything started to steam.

I made the error of going back to the car to get a brolly, i came back soaked.

We climbed down the falls to almost the bottom, it was definately photo pr0n for Katie and myself.

After the falls we headed into Triberg town to get some food. We settled in the only place that seemed open, an underground bierkeller style restaurant for pizza and pasta.

Awesome!

Konstanz - Thursday 14th May 2009

We took the long drive out today to Konstanz and the Bodensee today. I seem to have developed a nice cough,... meh.

Konstanz on the other hand is lovely, its a bit like Geneva but with less banks but it is still filled with rich looking people.

Konstanz is situated on the western edge of the lake where the Rhine enters Lake Constance. The Rhine exits on on the other side of the Bodensee. The city was created in the stone age but takes its name from the Roman emperor Constantius Chlorus. The town is split down the middle on the border with Swtizerland and, at the time of its creation was the only place in the local area with a bridge across the Rhine.

Anyway, back to the day, we had a wander round the city, taking in the sights. There seems to be quite a lot of construction going on at the moment so once again, lots of scaffold.

Amongst the sights were the cathedral (with an interesting masonic symbol on the ceiling) and the harbour (containing some very expensive boats).

It was once again, just a really nice place to be. We ate some food by the harbour bumbled about and had some coffee and cake in the centre.

Andy (who had left his passport at home) had managed to leave the UK, travel through France, Belgium, into Luxemburg, Germany, then France again before ending up in Germany, had no problems wandering over into Switzerland, get in, 5 countries in as many days!

We finished our day with a (cold and windy) boat trip onto the lake.

About an hour later we were in the car on the way back.

Feldberg and Titisee - Wednesday 13th May 2009 - A Day Off.

After the trauma of using public transport and too much walking we decided to have a mid week 'non-day".

We drove a little way up through the hills to the mountain and ski resort of Feldberg. It is a typical small ski resort with a couple of decent looking runs and more to the point, they have cool goats to feed and pet. They're a bit "enthusiastic" about getting fed, though, nearly lost a finger.

Got to stamp about in some of the last grubby snow patches right at the bottom of the hill, so perhaps wearing flipflops was a bad idea!

Browsed around in the couple of souvenir shops full of some disturbing tat and bad booze, all overpriced and crappy.

Deffo worth a trip to again if there is some snow and we are down that way.

We spent the afternoon relaxing by Titisee, watching ducks, dogs and people wandering about. Lovely day!

Freiburg - Tuesday 12th May 2009 - The Cambridge of the Black Forest.

Freiburg is awesome, it is on the western edge of the Black Forest and was only a short train ride away from Titisee, thats right people, i took the train somewhere.
Another cool thing about Freiburg is that it is twinned with Guildford.

We took one of the DB red double decker trains. It was clean, exactly on time and smooth. The view was awesome as we passed through little meadows and over bridges along the edges of mountain streams and rivers until we the land opened out and we entered civilisation.

Freiburg is a university town and also is a Free Market town, which is where the town gets its name.

At the centre of the city is the market place and the cathedral which date well back to the 1500s. When we got in we went straight to the market square to find a craft market up and running selling everything from wooden toys to plants and flowers.
Dominating the market is the cathedral, the sweeney curse was in play as the thing was covered in scaffold,... as usual. I swear one day im going to go somewhere where they have completely renovated a building and it will be gleaming and beautiful, on that day, i guarrantee that i will have forgotten my camera.

We spent the morning wandering round taking in the sights and then we headed over to the hills to the east and began to climb. We climbed and climbed and eventually reached the top. At the summit we found a spire, a tower of doom, step after step after step. Shattered, our group reached the top and looked out, absolutely beautiful. The clouds had cleared and the sun was out and the view went on for miles.... Katie wasn't too keen on the height though!

We returned home tired, shattered and happy at a day well done.

Höllsteig - Monday 11th May 2009 - Cuckoo Clocks, Water Falls and the Freaky Bar.

That a day! It was superb!
Höllsteig is a small place just on the road and rail in the direction of Freiburg. It has a large Best Western hotel on site and is essentially a place for coach parties to stop off, buy glassware and cuckoo clocks and also, as we found with most places in the Black Forest, a place to walk. It is also home to Germany's LARGEST cuckoo clock! (We sweens know how to rock and roll).

The first thing we looked at were the clocks, they were just simply amazing. The intricate details on them really impressed me and almost every one was completely different with different characters and ornaments. One of them even, as part of the workings, had a water wheel on the side with actual running water,... very odd and over the top, also deafening on the hour as all the little hatches opened and the cuckoos appeared.
Under the clock shop was a glass blowers, nothing really special here, loads of lovely, very expensive vases and ornaments.
The main reason for our visit was to walk up the water falls and valley of the local river. The trip took us up gangways and ladders, over tall drops and through thick woodland. The whole trip smelled of wet pine forest and at times the crashing of the water on the rocks was deafening. There is not really much to say about it, have a look at the photos, i took enough of them!
At the top of the river, as it opened out from the forest we came across a bar and guest house. We decided to stop and relax for a bit. Just as we were tucking into our very sexy plum and apple cake (by this time we realised that two portions could feed the four of us) the owner came up for a chat. He was a scary looking fella with tatoos on his arms, a thinning mullet and a biker mostache. He spoke in a very thick accent and i could not make out a single word he said, he would bang on the wall as well, it scared all of us quite a lot, mainly becuase the chap looked absolutely plastered. Luckily he had a friend closeby who was able to translate. Aparently there had been an earthquade in the region two nights before. The owners friend gave us directions and we left pretty quickly, stopping only to blaspheme on the way out.

The rest of the walk took us mainly down hill back to Hollsteig where we rested before the trip back to Titisee.

A Bitche of a Journey - Saturday 9th - Sunday 10th May 2009

As we have with all our holidays, a REALLY early start. This one was an 0530hrs get-up. We got out of the flat as quickly as possible and left to get our new travel buddies Katie and Andy. It was Andy’s first trip outside of the United Kingdom and there was some apprehension as we approached the Channel Tunnel as Andy did not have a passport. We won’t go into it but after a traumatic series of events, he did not have one.

As usual, it didn’t pose a problem at all. Waved through by French border control we continued our onward journey down thorough France, a bit into Luxembourg, a bit into Germany and finally ending up back in France at the beautiful city of Bitche.

Bitche is a lovely town on the eastern fringes of France. The town which was formed by the joining of the villages of Rohr and Kaltenhausen in the 17th century, gets its name from the old stronghold Bytis Castrum. This stood on the rocky hillside 80m above the town.

This stronghold was destroyed by the French and a new Citadel was built in its place in 1740. This citadel was proved impregnable until WW2 when it was occupied by the Germans as a control centre for the area.

The city was liberated by the yanks at the end of the war – History Done!

The city today is very quaint and more akin to being occupied by coach tours of elderly people from all over the region. There is only one decent hotel in the city centre, Hotel l’Strasbourg. We stayed there and it was lovely, expensive, but lovely. The hotel backs onto the gardens that sit in the shadow of the citadel.

We had a quick wander through these gardens, a quick walk that turned into a long stroll with loads of photos! The colours were amazing and there were a number of small art type gardens with lots of different themes.

After the gardens everyone was getting a little hungry so we went in search of food…. Worryingly there was very little to do of an evening in Bitche. There was the over-priced restaurant at the hotel and apart from that there was only a kebab shop in town,.. so,… dirty burgers it was! It was such a shame, the place really needs a nice place to eat and drink of an evening, there is so much potential but it was generally rubbish.

We retired for the evening and the next day we decided to storm the citadel.

Now, the citadel is completely ACE! It is really high up and you can see for miles around, it is a perfect place to defend the town and the local area. The place could exist for months on end under siege; it had a massive reservoir for drinking water and huge grain stores. On site was a bakery and a network of underground tunnels meant there was ample room for cold stores.

We were amazed by the local inhabitants, not the people but the Herons. Circling the citadel, coming into land and having a wander around, I have never been so close to these amazing birds, they are huge and look incredibly powerful.

We collected a quick Geocache and then left the city behind us to make our way over to our home away from home, Titisee!

Titisee on first glance is a lovely little german town, on the edge of lake Titisee and, like Bitche, is FULL of tourists and coach parties. In the heart of the Black Forest, people come from miles around to go on walking, driving and spa holidays, also to row and sail on the lake.

We were staying at the Hotel Alemannenhof, they have some blocks of apartments just up the hill from the main hotel that would be our base for the week. The appartment was huge as they go and the views from the balcony were astounding. You could see all the way left to town, to the right into the Black Forest with the lake stretching from one side to the other in front. With mountains and hills on each side the air was pretty still and and reflections off the water were beautiful.

We explored a little and walked down to the waters edge, where i made a promise to go for a swim, a promise that i would later fail to keep.

We had a quick beer and a bit of cake at the hotel before heading up to the room for a sleep.