Black Forest, Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte

The station at Triberg was a little way out of town so we caught a bus with lots of other people into a busy main street full of activity but whatever was going on must have just finished because within only a few minutes Triberg was just as quiet as Villingen. With more snow today we thought we might visit the waterfall again and climb higher this time but more snow was a problem and the paths were closed even lower down than two days previously so we walked along footpaths under pine trees that would occasionally give up their covering of snow in a dramatic little avalanche that fell on us as we walked along the snow covered trails. Triberg was a pretty little town but at the top end and standing out like a sore thumb was possibly the most awful hotel ever built and so ugly and inappropriate that it was impossible to imagine who on earth thought that it might ever have been a good idea?

The cuckoo clock house was closed, which we thought was odd and so were most of the other souvenir shops. The Black Forest Museum was open but didn’t look very thrilling and certainly not worth €5 each entrance fee so we did what we had really come here to do and found the Café Schäfer, which since 1867 is Triberg’s oldest patisserie, for a slice of authentic Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte or Black Forest gateaux. This is where the owner is the son of the apprentice of the chef who first invented the famous cake in 1915 and who continues today to bake to the original recipe. It was delicious and lived up completely to our expectations, full of dark chocolate sponge layers, juicy morello cherries soaked in kirsch liquor, chocolate shavings that melted in the mouth and lashings of dreamy fresh cream which was quite magnificent and nothing like the grotesque Sarah Lee frozen variety of 1970s bourgeois dinner parties.

http://www.cafe-schaefer-triberg.de/

Before we left I paid a visit to the gent’s bathroom and I mention this not to be indelicate or to provide any unnecessary details but just to say that German lavatories must be, after Switzerland, the cleanest in Europe and so spotless that I almost felt that I need to wash my hands on the way in. Toilets in Greece would come bottom of any list and there wouldn’t be many Loo of the Year awards being handed out in France or Spain either.

With the town closed we walked back through the snow bound streets to the station and caught the train back to Offenburg. It was still quite early and we would have stopped off at Gengenbach for a drink but the train was an express and didn’t stop there so we just went straight back. It had stopped snowing now and the streets and the car park had been cleared by the efficient council so there was no problem driving back to the hotel which was much quieter again now that the bus party had moved on.

Our final night and we ate in the hotel again but I noticed that they didn’t give us a table anywhere near to the cuckoo clock. With less people to serve the dining room had a more relaxed atmosphere this evening and we made our selections from the menu which was mostly in German but with some helpful English translations that didn’t always reconcile exactly.

We ordered rump steak but the waitress, who spoke not a word of English, informed us mostly in sign language and exaggerated head nodding movements that there was none, so we had to quickly select an alternative while she hovered next to the table. I choose pork schnitzel and Kim the venison and the waitress returned to the kitchen with the orders. At the bar I could see her discussing our order with other staff and it looked as though there might be a problem and sure enough she returned to us delivering a meal to the table next to ours on the way and in the process spilling half of the french fries on the floor. Clearly something was flustering her.

She seemed concerned about the venison order and really wanted to make sure that Kim knew what she was ordering and was comfortable eating a creature that in England we normally associate with Walt Disney or Christmas cards rather than being presented on a dinner plate. To make sure we knew what it was she kept repeating the German word for venison and because she wasn’t confident that she was making any progress then resorted to mime and raised her arms above her head and extended her fingers to represent antlers. It was a brilliant performance and we assured her that we knew exactly what she meant and confirmed that we were happy with the order and she seemed to settle down after that. I’m not sure that we convinced her however because when Kim’s meal arrived they seemed to have found a piece of rump steak after all because it certainly wasn’t venison.

Black Forest, Badische Schwarzwaldbahn

I woke early in the morning and now that the effects of the wine had almost completely worn away immediately recalled the incident with the cuckoo clock and I worried that I might have broken it and would be presented with a hefty repair bill when we checked out. Wide awake I checked the weather and instead of the blue sky that we had predicted there had been a significant fall of snow and it was still coming down thick and fast.

Over breakfast we agreed that this was probably not a good day to be driving around the Black Forest on snow bound roads even with winter tyres so we decided to take a train journey instead. The car took some clearing and de-icing and then we left the residential streets of Rammersweier and headed towards the city centre and the train station. This being Sunday there wasn’t a lot of traffic about and the snow that had fallen remained mostly undisturbed and lay like a thick carpet across the road and the pavements. We negotiated our way safely to the station, found a car park and because it was still snowing left the car hoping that it wouldn’t get completely snowed in while we were away.

We had missed the train by just a couple of minutes so this provided an opportunity for an early morning beer in a bar opposite the station while we waited before going back to purchase our €30 day return ticket for a journey into the forest on the Badische Schwarzwaldbahn. The Black Forest Railway (as we know it) was built between 1863 and 1873 and today is a twin-track, electrified railway line running in a north-west to south-east direction and links Offenburg on the Rhine Valley Railway with Singen on the Upper Rhine Railway. It passes directly across the Black Forest, through spectacular scenery on a route that is one hundred and fifty kilometres long, ascends six hundred and fifty metres from lowest to highest elevation, and passes through thirty-nine tunnels and over two viaducts. It is the only true mountain railway in Germany to be built with two tracks, and is the most important railway line in the Black Forest.

Being Germany the scarlet DBAG Class 146 locomotive and modern double-decker passenger cars arrived and left completely on schedule and we selected good seats on the top deck with excellent views on both sides. The first part of the journey was quite flat as we passed through Gengenbach on our way to Hausach as the train lines followed the route of the Kinzig valley through sleeping vineyards and lifeless orchards and then as the valley narrowed the train began to climb effortlessly towards the most dramatic and scenic part of the route through the Gutach valley to Hornberg and then to Triberg and on to Sankt Georgan.

In this middle section the train has to ascend six-hundred metres through a series of helical tunnels and this part of the line was the most complicated to construct and was completed last. The route passes through thirty-seven tunnels in this section alone and across one large viaduct at Hornberg. On its way from north to south, the line passes under the main European watershed (a geographical feature that divides the drainage basins of the major rivers of Germany north and south) twice, once via the Sommerau tunnel between Triberg and Sankt Georgen, which is one thousand seven hundred meters long, and then via the Hatting tunnel, between Engen and Immendingen, which is nine hundred meters long.

This was a brilliant journey through magnificent scenery, thick snow and blizzards and as I was not driving today I was able to enjoy the fabulous views. After Sankt Georgan the line began to descend again until it reached our first destination of Villingen-Schwenningen where we left the train after a journey of an hour and ten minutes. It had stopped snowing now but not before it had deposited several centimetres on top of the town and everywhere looked pristine and clean under a dazzling white mantle.

Perhaps Villingen is always quiet on a Sunday or perhaps the snow had kept people in doors because the place was curiously tranquil today and everywhere was closed and it was obvious that this was not the place to drive out to for Sunday lunch on a snowy day. The town was much like Freiburg only smaller with a main street with too many shops but pretty enough with pastel coloured facades and colourful window displays but as there wasn’t a great deal to do we only stayed for forty minutes and then took the next available train back to Triberg.

From the eastern edge of the forest we went back through the cork screw loops into the high mountains covered in pine trees all bearing a heavy burden of snow and standing in rows like an army regiment waiting for orders to march. Before we reached Triberg there was another blizzard and the train passed through the succession of long dark tunnels with each black void ending with the explosive contrast of the brilliant white cresta run channels of trackside snow as we passed out of them. It was simply wonderful and we enjoyed it.

Black Forest, Cuckoo Clocks

Triberg looked stunning under a covering of fresh snow and we started out to walk the main road which was difficult in the snow and ice because the town is very hilly and the main tourist road runs up a steep straight incline toward the waterfall at the top. The snow on the path to the waterfall was completely undisturbed and we were the first to use it this morning as we made our way towards the lower and middle falls. The snow was thick and came over the tops of our boots and it made a satisfying crunch with every footstep towards the top until we reached the noisy waterfall where the Gutach River plunges over a series of cascades two kilometers long and about five hundred meters high. The falls were spectacular this morning roaring over the rocks in between snow covered banks and icicles where the water had submitted to the freezing conditions and was temporarily fixed in time.

Many of the paths were closed for safety reasons but this didn’t stop Kim from squeezing in between the barriers, ignoring the closed signs and finding her way back to the bottom along a high ridge. As we were in Germany I did what the Germans do and respectfully obeyed the instructions. We met up again at the bottom of the falls and at the top of the main street that was full on both sides of tourist shops selling Black Forest souvenirs and traditional crafts including cuckoo clocks, because Triberg is the cuckoo clock capital of the forest.

Although the idea of placing a cuckoo bird in a clock did not originate in the Black Forest the cuckoo clock as we know it today comes from this region located in southwest Germany whose tradition of clock making started in the late seventeenth century. The people of the Black Forest who created the cuckoo clock industry developed it and still come up with new designs and technical improvements which have made the cuckoo clock a valued work of art all over the world. The clock is a symbol of the Black Forest and is probably the favourite souvenir of visitors to Germany, Austria and Switzerland and the centre of production is right here in the middle of the forest in the area of Schonach and Titisee-Neustadt.

We spent some time in the ‘house of a thousand clocks’ amongst the richly decorated time pieces displaying carved leaves, birds, deer heads and all the other forest animals and sometimes methods of shooting them as well. And with cuckoo clocks chiming and cuckooing all around us we even considered a purchase but the high prices and the pressure on the meager Ryanair baggage allowance stopped us from making the very basic tourist mistake of buying something for the sake of it and then wondering what on earth for when we got it home.

The time on the parking ticket was running out but before we left we found a hotel bar where we had soup and a beer and warmed our clothes on the radiator and then when we were finished we put our coats back on and went outside where it had stopped snowing so instead of going straight back we left the town of Triberg and set off for our next objective, the town of Schiltach.

The main road was clear again now and because we obviously hadn’t learned any lessons this morning about driving conditions at Sankt Georgan we turned off and choose a minor road through the forest towards our destination. Sankt Georgan was under several centimetres of snow and as the road began to climb the surface disappeared under a white blanket and we began to wonder if we had made an entirely sensible decision. The worst point of these journeys was always the mid way point where the turn-back option disappeared and there was no alternative but to carry on. The road took us through the town of Schramberg where everyone was busy clearing snow and then finally on to Schiltach where we found a car park without any trouble and we took a walk around the small town centre and along the river Kinzig.

After we had walked around the attractive streets of half-timbered buildings we had a drink in a little pub on the main road, warmed ourselves up again and then took the main road back towards Offenburg. It was still snowing but it was a nasty wet snow now and as we dropped out of the mountains it became grey and bleak and not very pleasant at all. We stopped at the Aldi supermarket in Haslach because we needed wine and being constrained to screw caps were restricted to a very limited selection and I for one will be really pleased when corkscrews can be taken on board planes again.

In the evening, based on complimentary guest reviews, we took the easy option and ate at the hotel in a busy dining room surrounded by ornaments, Black Forest bric-a-brac including cuckoo clocks, sporting trophies and decorations for the festival of Fasnacht which is a carnival in Alemannic folklore that takes place in the few days before Lent in Southern Germany, Switzerland and Alsace. The Alemanni were German tribes who lived in this part of Europe nearly two thousand years ago and this area remains characterised by a form of German with a distinct dialogue called Alemannic. The celebration literally means ‘Fasting Eve’ as it originally referred to the day before the fasting season of Lent. The schools are all closed for this festival and all over the Black Forest there are six days of parties and making merry. During this period a sort of doughnut is popular and these are called fasnachts that are a traditional fatty treat that are produced as a way to empty the pantry of lard, sugar, fat and butter, which are forbidden during Lent. This is a catholic tradition but in protestant England we call this Shrove Tuesday and serve pancakes instead of doughnuts, it is much the same thing.

They were certainly clearing out the pantry tonight and the restaurant was full of people enjoying hearty meals and plenty of beer and wine. We joined in and really had too much to eat, so much that we certainly couldn’t clear our plates which we apologised for. It was still damp and miserable when we went to bed so we held off making any plans until we could assess the situation in the morning but it didn’t look as though we would be needing the winter tyres.