Germany
August 10 to August 27, 2010

1: Hamburg        2: Berlin        3: Munich        4: Black Forest        5: art digressions

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©2010 James Teitelbaum.  All rights reserved.
Use of text or images contained within this document is strictly prohbited.

Persistent prologue: I write these travelogues for myself, so that twenty years from now, I will be able to remember as much about these trips as possible.  I include as much detail as I can cram in, so as to get it all fixed in writing before the memories fade.  I share these with friends, family, and any complete strangers who find them, because people express interest.  I know that these writings do ramble on a bit, but I do not require an editor; these writings are here as aids to my own memory, not as attempts at serious travel writing -- although anecdotes from these journals have formed the core of my proper travel writings, which have appeared in print and on the web elsewhere.


Romantischestrasse (Romantic Road) is indicated in red.  
Burgenstrasse (Castle Road) is indicted in blue. 
Schwarzwald (Black Forest) is indicated in green.

Part four: Bavaria and the Black Forest

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Today begins the fourth and final leg of this excursion: the Bavarian road trip!
This is the part of Germany known for castles, cuckoo clocks, kirsch, and chocolate cake.
This is wine country too, and I really wanted to see the black forest.
It shall be done.
I had a ticketed appointment to see two castles at the end of the afternoon today.
They are near the town of Füssen, which is said to be about two hours’ drive from Munich.

I crawled out of bed at 11:14 am, and hotel management called just a minute later to boot me out of the room (check-out had been at 11:00 am). I managed to shower, finish packing, and vacate by 11:35 am. Checked email in the lobby (no wi-fi in the room), was at the Hertz counter (in the nearby Hauptbahnhof) by noon, and in my rented car by 12:22 pm. Black Hyundai with only 4103 kilometers on it (2550 miles), license plate number DN-HR4877, and located in parking space number 666. Manual windows. The CD player had someone else’s random disc in it (a home-made affair marked, in Sharpie, Fur Meinen Schatz - “For My Treasure”... awwww...). I didn’t play it: I’d thought ahead and brought some mix CDs from home. But what dumb-ass part of me forgot to bring Autobahn by Kraftwerk? I acclimated to driving here rather quickly. The differences between driving in Germany and in the U.S. are minimal; a few of the signs are different, and that’s about it. I like how the traffic lights flash yellow for just a second as they go from red to green. Gives you a second to get it in gear and get ready to go. My map was not adequate to get me to the A96, the first major road I’d need to be on. I just started driving, and within five minutes, I came across it purely by chance. Aces. Time to hit the road. So: Autobahn. Germany is famous for their autobahn as being a super-highway that has no speed limit. Let me clear a few things up here. The word autobahn translates simply to “highway”.   So, reference to THE autobahn is inaccurate, there are many. The autobahn is precisely analogous to the U.S. Interstate highway system: a series of numbered roads providing high-speed access across the nation. Just as U.S. Interstates are numbered I-80, I-94, I-5, etc., so are the autobahn numbered: A3, A96, etc. Also, the old U.S. highways (seen as magenta lines on almost all U.S. road maps) that were mostly replaced by the Interstate system have a parallel in Germany too. These roads are labeled with a “B”: B33, B9, etc. In Germany, the “A” roads are labeled with blue and white, and the “B” roads with yellow and black. Even today, the old U.S. highways are a more scenic and rewarding way to travel, but they’re much slower than the interstates. The same is true with the B-roads Germany.

Now, the A roads do have speed limits. Mostly. The limits change often, every few kilometers, so you have to pay attention. Signs are posted regularly, much more often than in the U.S. But, in certain areas, the speed limit signs vanish, rather conspicuously, and all bets are off in these zones. Slick German cars - Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, and Porsche - go screaming by in the left-hand passing lane. Other motorists had damned well better keep to the right. I was doing something like 135 kilometers per hour (a bit over 80 miles per hour), and I was still in the right lane, with other cars doing about the same speed. Cars coming up on the left were easily exceeding the magic number of 161 kph (100 miles an hour) and were in fact probably pushing 200 kph. Before switching lanes, a glance into the rear-view mirror usually yielded a BMW or Audi in the left lane, coming up frighteningly fast. One gets the hell out of the way.

At about 1:15 pm (54.9 kilometers into the trip), I stopped in a small town called Landsberg to stock up on supplies. For the next four days, I’d be living in the car and in two different hotels (in two different towns), so I loaded up at Lidl (grocery store chain) with a six-pack of 1.5 liter waters (for a whopping total of €1.14... plus €1.50 deposit!), bananas, orange juice, fresh rolls, and an indulgence: a big packet of smoked salmon. The salmon was €2.99 alone, but the total for all of it came to €7.97. Ate a delicious smoked salmon sandwich in the car. This wasn’t the hyper-salty seelachs stuff that I’d been munching in Berlin, this was the real deal. Making sure I left enough for a second meal, I moved along. Stopped at a gas station to get a better map, and discovered that the only decent one was €8.50. I looked at it to make sure I was on the right path, replaced it on the shelf, and made my way towards Füssen.

At the gas station, I spied a middle-aged man in a blue t-shirt, glasses, and khaki pants, washing the window of his car.
In full clown makeup.
Just your basic German clown, hangin’ out, gassing up the car.

Moving on to B17. At 2:09 pm (96.3km), I drove over a huge bridge across the most breathtaking river valley ever. The sun was shining down on amazing emerald water through tall hills filled with trees. I had to park the car and walk across the bridge to get some pictures and to soak it all in. I noticed a walking path into the trees and down to the river, and vowed to explore it at a later date, should my trip take me back past this way.

Getting back into the car, two things happened: I finally noticed the complimentary road map in a compartment in the driver’s side door, and I dumped the second half of my salmon onto the fuzzy carpet.
Shit!
Three-second rule!
Scooped it up, and used half a bottle of water to wash it off. Well, it was pretty clean, but soggy. Hmm, it’s a fish. Used to being wet. But I’d better eat it now, or else it is going to get disgusting.

Spent another hour rolling amongst green rural Bavarian farms. Many of the buildings look like something out of the Brothers Grimm or some sort of fairy tale. And after all, why not? Most of the famous fairy tales were Germanic in origin, and many of the people who have filmed or illustrated these stories have preserved a classic Bavarian style when creating their works. Hansel and Grettel, Red Riding Hood, Rumpelstiltskin, Rapunzel, Snow White... all of these stories and dozens more have their roots right here, and most contemporary tellings of these stories still keep them rooted in their homeland. I did stop to take some pictures of little farm villages.

A sudden and massive downpour of heavy rain caused me some concern, but it subsided as quickly as it arrived. Still, skies remained a deep grey.

The drive towards the pair of castles, which are just across the road from each other, is quite scenic. The fairy tales came straight to life. Perched high on a majestic mountain is the amazing Schloss Neuschwanstein, which in fact was used as the model for the castle at Disneyland. It is easy to picture serfs working the farms and fields all around here, unable to escape the reminder of their king, their overlord and protector, watching over them from the unmissable edifice on the cliffs, halfway between Earth and sky. It was a bit grey and drizzly now, but the slight fogginess only added to the atmosphere of romance and mystery.

       

As one gets closer, the illusion vanishes.

The entire little town of Hohenschwangau (=High Swan County) exists only as infrastructure for the two tourist trap castles.
Tour busses, throngs of people, souvenir shops, and expensive parking lots dominate the otherwise scenic valley.
Mobs of my fellow tourists were packed into the tiny one-street town (about 3km from the larger Füssen).
By 3:06 pm, I parked (for free) a few hundred yards down the small country road from whence I had arrived.
Lots of other people had done the same.
Loaded all of my gear safely into the trunk, and then hoofed it back towards the ticket building to pick up my pre-paid tickets.

I am due to see Schloss (=castle) Hohenschwangau at 3:55 pm, and Schloss Neuschwanstein at 5:55 pm.
I was scheduled to pick up my tickets at 2:55, but I don’t think they’ll sweat me over being ten minutes late.
I’d reserved the tickets on-line, and provided my credit card number.
Upon arrival, I was informed that the two already expensive tickets were being augmented in cost by a €3.60 “reservation fee”.
The girl at the counter told me that if one doesn’t make a reservation then all tours will be sold out.
The display monitor on the wall behind her showed that there were open spaces for every tour, in every language, for the rest of the day.
I've got a bad feeling about this...

As I hiked up a short and easy hillside path to Schloss Hohenschwangau, I grumbled a bit at the extra fee, and the strict no-photo policy (inside).
I arrived at the top and shot some (legal) pics of the outside.
It was kind of cool, with  sculptures of crests and knights and all of the stuff you'd expect to see from a castle.
It was also newer than I'd expected, having been built in the 19th century.
 
Over one side there is a huge expanse of green farmland, and the opposite view is of a wonderful lake in a mountain valley.

Three sets of turnstyles allow the next three tours to queue up ahead of time.
There is literally a tour every five minutes, on the dot.
The 2:55 pm English tour was allowed to enter right on time.
Perhaps twenty people climbed some stairs and then sat in a plain white concrete room for at least ten minutes.
Then our tour guide, a sturdy and tough looking frau, led us through the castle.
She was hard to understand.
She spoke fast and robotically in thickly accented English.
The tour group was herded though a dozen or so rooms, and it was all over after less than a half hour.
Schloss Hohenschwangau isn’t especially large for a king’s residence (but then again neither is Graceland), but it is filled with some very interesting art: paintings, wall murals, decorative arts, and furniture, plus nice architectural details.
There are swan motifs, either obvious or subtle, in almost every room.

I’d wanted to linger in almost every room in order to examine things and ask further questions, but this was not allowed.

The artifact that got the most attention from our docent was a loaf of back (=bread) which was brought to the king by a Russian ambassador.
Somehow, it has survived and not rotted for something like 150 years.
It is in an airtight glass box now.
About a quarter of the tour was spent talking about this crusty old bread.
I wish that the lovely Wagnerian historical murals had been augmented with as much back-story as the back.
The artwork on these murals was really nice.

Hohenschwangau was:
“...the childhood residence of King Ludwig II of Bavaria and was built by his father, King Maximilian II of Bavaria.
Hohenschwangau Castle was built on the remains of the fortress Schwanstein, which dates from the 12th century. Maximilian II acquired the ruins in 1832.
Reconstruction of the Castle continued until 1837, with additions up to 1855.
The architect in charge, Domenico Quaglio, was responsible for the neogothic style of the exterior design.
Queen Marie created a garden with plants gathered from all over the alps.
King Maximilian died in 1864, and his son Ludwig succeeded to the throne.
King Ludwig enjoyed living in Hohenschwangau, especially after 1869, when the building of his own castle, Neuschwanstein, began.
Hohenschwangau has been a museum since 1913.”

The next castle was Neuschwanstein (literally “new swan stone”).
It is at the peak of a much higher hill than Schloss Hohenschwangau.
Walking up this hill is significantly more strenuous than the previous hike.
One can take a shuttle bus up for € 4, and back down for €2.
I walked.

I had eighty minutes to hike down the small hill from the first castle, cross a busy tourist-infested street, find a clearly labeled path, and then stroll up to Neuschwanstein.
It is a scenic walk up a long paved path through a dense forest.
Others walked as well, and a few people came up via horse and buggy.
That’s got to cost a fortune!
One group coming down the hill towards me was 79 people strong.
I counted.
Skies were still grey, although I couldn’t see them through the ceiling of branches across the path.
I heard thunder, but it seemed to be getting further away.

I made it up to Neuschwanstein with plenty of time to spare.
At the top of the hill, a series of scenic overlooks provide good photo opportunities.
The crowds are every bit as dense up here as down below.

This castle isn’t actually all that old.
Neuschwanstein was commissioned by Ludwig II of Bavaria as a retreat, and as an homage to composer Richard Wagner.
Ludwig was so into Wagner that he didn’t want any references to himself in the castle: no portraits, sculptures, or frescoes.
All the decor is strictly Wagneriana.

“When Ludwig II came to power in 1864, the construction of a new palace became his first project. Neuschwanstein was opened to the paying public immediately after his death in 1886. Ludwig himself called the new palace New Hohenschwangau Castle. Only after his death was it renamed Neuschwanstein. The building design was drafted by the stage designer Christian Jank and realized by the architect Eduard Riedel. Throughout, the design pays homage to the German legends of Lohengrin, the Swan Knight. Hohenschwangau, where Ludwig spent much of his youth, had decorations of these sagas. These themes were taken up in the operas of Richard Wagner. Many rooms bear a border depicting the various operas written by Wagner, including a theater permanently featuring the set of Percival. Many of the interior rooms remain undecorated, with only fourteen rooms finished before Ludwig's death.”

I liked the king’s bedroom, decorated in gothic spires of dark wood, maybe mahogany, and murals from Tristan und Isolde. The Percival theater-room is quite interesting as well, and was completed only three days before the king’s mysterious - and unsolved - death.
The throne room and golden chapel are amazing as well.
However, the tour of Neuschwanstein is equally as perfunctory and equally as unsatisfying as Schloss Hohenschwangau had been.
Barely twenty minutes. I got a little annoyed at the lack of quality of the visitor experience at this pair of sites, which is uncharacteristic for German cultural institutions.
With few exceptions, I have been very pleased with all of the sites and museums I have visited to date.

In order to salvage the experience, I vowed to sneak a few photos.
As soon as my guide had introduced herself and led the tour out of the antechamber that the group met in, I lingered at the back of the crowd and snapped a photo of the interesting sculptural patterns on the ceiling (this is not the pic you see to the right).

Immediately, the leader of the subsequent group was at my side reminding me, in no uncertain terms, not to shoot. I played dumb: ”Oh, I thought the rule was no flash photography”. She said that the rule was none at all, and that my docent had said so. I smiled and made a show of compliance while stating that I hadn’t been able to understand her because of her accent and because she was so far away and was soft spoken, all of which was mostly true. Anyway, this chick made it a point to give me the stink-eye every time her group followed mine into a room. This of course only made me more determined. So, shooting from the hip at ISO 3200, I ended up with the pic seen to the right (a ceiling) and a few others, but really, the very best parts of this brief experience are locked in my fading memory.

I wondered about the photo policy. It must exist so that they can either sell more souvenir photos books, or to keep groups moving through as fast as possible, or so as not to spoil the fact that the tours here are ultimately rather hollow experiences. After the tour, I was chatting with my guide - who was unaware of her peer having busted me - and asked her what the reason for the policy was. In an unexpected moment of candor, and with no prodding from me, she confirmed all three of my suspicions, to the word.

So basically, it’s all profit-motivated.

And profit, they do: The combi-ticket for both castles is €17, plus €3.60 for the “reservation fee”.
And, it is €4.50 if you want to park, plus up to €6 for shuttles up to and from Neuschwanstein.
So a single visitor may be in for €31.50, or well over $40.
For this price, the tour of each castle is less than a half hour long (they claim forty-five to fifty minutes, but the first fifteen minutes is used up getting everyone organized).
No one is allowed to linger when their tour guide moves the tour along; there is always also another tour immediately behind, and usually in a different language.
Cameras are forbidden.
The guides on the English tours only barely spoke English, and are not receptive to being stopped for questions.
I have seldom been to a place that sucks people dry of cash as shamelessly as this attraction does, and offers so little in return.

All of this cynicism aside, Neuschwanstein does have its moments, as does Hohenschwangau.
They're both rather interesting inside, but you just don't get too savor it, or learn much.

But honestly - and this isn’t exactly advertised - you can walk the grounds of both castles and check out the exteriors for free.
This might be more worth it.
There are other less famous castles all over Bavaria; I wonder if some of them are as interesting inside but are better experiences, benefitting from their lack of iconic status?

From the rear terrace of Neuschwanstein, one can see a precarious looking foot bridge straddling a deep valley, way up in the mountains.
That's the view of the bridge from a castle terrace (above and to the right).
Below that is the reverse view, the castle as seen from the bridge.

People were walking across it, so I decided to find the path that went up there.

It was easy to find.
I hiked further up into the deep forest.
There are several paths up here, marked clearly at each crossroads with a sign.
The signs pointed to towns, and listed estimated walking times, not physical distances (kilometers). Some of them listed two, four, or six hour walks.
I realized that I’d found part of the famous network of Black Forest hiking paths.
There are said to be 23,000 km of hiking paths criss-crossing Bavaria.
Sixteen of them are major, long-distance walking paths through the forest and through other parts of southwestern Germany.
Of these sixteen primary paths, the most famous is called Westweg, which runs 280 km from Pforzheim to Basle.

I really liked the idea of wandering deep into this forest, which, again, was the locale and inspiration for so many of the old European fables, such as those collected by the Brothers Grimm.

I saw one old path leading up into the densest part of the woods.
A few ancient stone stairs got you started, and then there is just the faintest suggestion of a hint of the remains of a trail.
That’s the one to follow...
...alas, some other time.

Arriving at the bridge (called Marienbrücke, or Marion’s Bridge), I beheld a harrowing drop into a river valley, far below.
That's the view, to the right, looking straight down the chasm.
This bridge did not seem entirely stable.
The path continued deeper into the forest, but I turned back.
It would take a solid hour to walk back to the car from here as it was: down the hill to the castle, and then down from there to the road, and then along the road to the car.
It was about 7:00 pm by this point, and there was still some daylight seeping through the cloud cover, but I needed to get moving.

Tried to take some shortcuts on the way down, using roots and branches to cut across switchbacks along the main trail.
Almost ended up sliding down the muddy slopes, but I remained vertical, and got to the car by 7:43 pm.

A crazy sunset over distant mountains made them look as though they were on fire.
(A bit below, right).

Made the short drive to my lodgings: Seegasthof Weissensee, a guest house along a small and nearly deserted road outside of Füssen.
See - gast - hof = guest house by the sea, or “lake inn”,
Weissen - see = “white lake”.

Run by the Garcia-Preikschat family, the Seegasthof Weissensee cost me a reasonable €52.80 for the night. Pulling into the small but full parking lot, I saw two quintessentially Bavarian buildings. One held guest rooms plus the main dining room, and the other was an auxiliary building with more guest rooms. I was unable to find the office to check in. I went into the restaurant and asked the man behind the bar where I could check in.
“Here”, he said.
Then I noticed, behind the beer taps, that the bar area was also an office.
Good thinking.

Found my room in the annex building. I was pleased with this place. It was what I was hoping for: tucked into the green hills, quintessentially Bavarian in appearance, and charming in a non-contrived way. As “authentic” as I could hope to find, and reasonably priced to boot. I was happy to note the large lake behind the buildings (White Lake, I imagine), although my room faced out on an empty grassy area to the side of the building, and then someone’s house down the road a bit. I could see the lake off to the left a little bit.

After so many half-assed grocery store snack-meals on this trip, I was well overdue for a proper dinner. Decided to eat in the hotel’s restaurant. My other choices were snacks from my stash, or a drive back into tourist-trap Füssen. I didn’t want to deal with any more driving today, Füssen is kind of lame, and the Seegasthof Weissensee restaurant is kind of quaint (for real) anyway. Also, it was well after 8:00 pm at this point, and in these little quiet villages things close early. I am not sure I had time to go anywhere else.

As I sat down, Roxy Music’s Oh Yeah was playing on the radio. Roxy gets better and better the more time passes. Sterling example of pop music that holds up well across nearly four decades.
Had a Posthorn Gold half liter beer and a Postwirts Dunkel .4 liter for €2.90 each, while chowing down on the prixe fixe meal du jour (€12.90). A small bowl of bland chicken noodle soup for starters, and then filet of a white fish called seelachs. I though seelachs was salmon, as all of the salmon I had bought to date - of whatever quality - was labeled as such. Also “lox” is smoked salmon in some languages, so “lachs” seemed to follow. Alas, I was served something far less interesting, some sort of white fish. The portion was fine, but it was slathered in a bland creamy dill sauce. Potatoes on the side, and a little scoop of sherbet for dessert.
€18.70 plus €1 for a tip.

Like so much of Bavaria, the restaurant is decorated with a strange array of arts or crafts made from dead animals. There are five taxidermy chickens on a shelf above the table I ate at; three of them are wearing medals. Also something that might have been a cormorant. More birds in the lobby and also in the annex building.
Deer and stag horns too.
One must also love taxidermy fish heads.
Fish heads.
Roley poley fish heads.

The parallels between my Germany trip and my Alaska trip, which was completed just six weeks earlier, are revealing themselves in strange and unexpected ways. Mammal corpses as art and my uncharacteristically massive beer consumption, are the two themes that the summer of 2010 will be noted for. But also, I am now in a wild mountainous place with tall trees and big lakes, eating fish. A place to enjoy nature. Just like Alaska. Nice bookends to the summer. This Germany mission had been a rather urban trip up to now, but not anymore.

The Weissensee (lake) was visible just a few yards outside the window of the dining room, down a small grassy hill. It was dark by this time, and there are few artificial lights out back, but I could just make out the shape of the lake, and the big dark mountains on the other side.

Now after 9:00 pm, there was more or less no hope of adventure for this evening. The road past the guest house was completely dark, there are few other businesses or homes for miles in each direction. I walked down to the water, which was also completely dark. It still looks like it might rain (it has all day).
I am now experiencing the coldest and windiest weather I’ve experienced this whole trip.

There are no lights across the water anywhere, except for in one tiny area to my right; there is a small town or something over there.
The mountains that surround the lake seemed to be uninhabited.
In the moonlight, I could just barely make out their shape.
A small footpath runs along the edge of the lake, and there are a few benches here and there.
There are just a few lights along the path.

Looking out at the dark lake (“white sea” indeed, more like “black sea”... schwartzensee, I suppose), I got an idea to put my camera on my little tripod and take fifteen-second exposures across the water.
I ended up with this (pic to right)....
...which launched an obsession over the next couple of months.

When I got back to Chicago I started shooting the whole damned city, late at night, with looooong exposures.

I ended up walking along the path, where I discovered this little guy...

Clearly, being in the middle of Grimm’s Fairy Tale Forest, this was no normal toad.
It must (must!) be a prince.
Or, at least “the toad formerly known as (a) Prince”.
I guess I could kiss it and see if it transformed.
However, I am not a princess, so will leave this lil’ guy here to await a fair maiden who just wants this prince’s extra time and his (funky guitar riff) ...kiss.

The wind whipped the clouds around, and I was able to see the full moon.
A cloud with a straight edge bisected the moon, just like in the film Un Chien Andalou.

At the end of the path was a lakeside park. Across the road from there, I found some people having fun in a small inn. I asked for a Paulander Hefeweissen to go (€1.50). For some reason they were laughing at me. I noted that the price for beers as takeaway in Germany is less than if you consume the on premises. One just pays retail price instead of restaurant/pub price. The beer had been €2.60 on the menu. I walked further up the road, shooting more long-exposure photos of rural Bavaira late at night, and then doubled back from whence I had arrived. It is really quiet out here. I didn’t see anyone else on the path. It smells good out here. Pine trees.

Back in the room, I watched a truly crappy movie called After.Life, and hit the sack by 12:12 am.

Got up to close a window in the middle of the night, and managed to break a drinking glass which shattered all over the carpet.
I felt bad.
Some member of the family who own this place is going to have to clean that up.


Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Out of the room by 9:16 am.
Skipped shaving for the second day in a row.
Who am I trying to impress?
The black eye is nearly gone, after two weeks.

Back to the dining hall for an (included) buffet breakfast.
Like the dinner last night, it was fine but far from impressive.
Perfunctory.
But never mind the food, this hotel was clean, quiet, cozy and on the edge of a pretty lake.
No complaints.

Shot some pics of the Weissensee during the day... the pic to the right is more or less the same angle I grabbed last night.

In the car: on the road.
10:45 am, 171.7 kilometers.
Back on the B17, and just at the point where it becomes known as Romantischestrasse, or Romantic Road. This is a route that runs north-south, a few miles east of the Black Forest, and parallel to the edge of it. This drive is particularly scenic, and is said to give the traveler a taste of quintessentially German culture. This is all marketing; the road was named in the 1950s as a way to draw in Japanese(!) tourists. As a result, most of the signposts marking the route are in Japanese as well as German. The road begins in Füssen, and passes through Nördlingen, Dinkelsbühl and Rothenburg ob der Tauber before ending 180 miles away in Würzberg.

In many ways, this road is Germany’s equivalent of Route 66, in that it is a road trip destination for locals and tourists alike, which conjures up memories of earlier times.  On the map at the very top of this page, the Romantischestrasse is indicated in red. Although I have read about leisurely trips along the Romantic Road lasting as long as four days, I should be able to explore most of it today. Then I will double back just a few miles, and head west along a fragment of the Burgenstrasse (Castle Road), which will take me to the vicinity of Baden-Baden, my home town for the next two nights.  In the map at the top of this page, Burgenstrasse is indicated in blue. The Castle Road is another theme route across southern Germany (and a small portion of the Czech Republic) between Mannheim and Prague. At almost 1000 kilometers (621 miles) in length, it is much longer than the Romantic Road. And yes, there are many castles along the route. I came to suspect that a lot of them are sleepier and less tourist infested than the ones I visited yesterday. Almost immediately after leaving Füssen, headed north, I was in deep forest. By 11:30 am (221.4 km) I was in the first of the many small towns that I’d be passing through today. Spying Getränkemarkt Bauer (basically “farmer’s beverage shop”), I thought this might be a good place to find Dreiling Aquavit (which you’ll remember me trying in Hamburg) or some sort of local Kümmel, or one of the many regional herbal liqueurs that the owner of Beckett-Kopf in Berlin got me hep to. Unfortunately, all they have at this shop is beer. This was the biggest selection of beer I have seen in Germany to date. Beer all over Germany is sold from big plastic crates (similar to milk crates in the U.S.) that hold twenty bottles each. One out of a half-dozen cases or so comes with a promotional gift attached, like a cheap Panama hat or a stein. You can buy the whole case, or just grab a few bottles. They don’t really do pre-packaged 12-packs or 6-packs here though. Germans have the freedom to grab the exact number they want, and to pay a la carte for them. But if you buy the case of twenty, it’s a little cheaper, and you can get the promotional tchotchke. So I stocked up on one bottle each of six different local brews for €4.73. Beer is cheap in Germany!

12:30 pm.
Made a wrong turn near Augsburg and ended up on the autobahn. That sort of defeats the purpose of today’s scenic drive. Back on the Romantic stretch of B25 by 12:59. I could tell I was in the right place because of a sign that said so, and also because of a big castle on a nearby hill.
More greenery and half-millennium-old towns.

1:19 pm.
At Nördlingen, a town with a population of 20,000.
It is located in the middle of a meteorite crater, called the Nördlinger Ries.
It is one of only three towns in Germany that still completely surrounded by its ancient city wall.
The other two are Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Dinkelsbühl; both of them are also along this road.

Here at Nördlingen, one can climb a staircase (at each of the five city gates) and then walk along the top of the wall.
The entire town can be circumnavigated along the top of the three-story-tall wall.
I walked from Baldinger Tor (tor = gate) to Löpsinger Tor, or about one-fifth of the way around the city.
Baldinger Tor dates from 1376.

This was pretty cool, but here is a caveat for travel writers: be careful how much research you do after the fact.
Three months after coming home, I was teased with two fascinating discoveries about his town.
The first is this business about it being built in a meteorite crater.
I also found out that I missed their Augenblick museum: panoramas, magic lanterns, silent films, barrel organs, pianolas, music boxes and gramophones.
Might have been cool to see.
Nördlingen is also home of the Scharlachrennen, a horse riding tournament that dates to 1463.

2:18 pm
Moving into Dinkelsbühl, another of the “must-see” little towns along the Romantischestrasse.
This hamlet was founded in 1305 and is known for a yearly reenactment of the city's surrender to Swedish troops during the Thirty Years' War (1618 to 1648).
A highlight of that annual fest is the current mayor being required to chug a ritual beer in one gulp.
I parked the car in front of a traditional Bavarian kung-fu studio, and explored Dinkelsbühl.

2:47 pm
A half hour in Dinkelsbühl is just about enough, I suppose.
Walked through the festive city square on a sunny afternoon, observing lots of people in cafes while glancing passively into the endless, endless souvenir shops.

Didn’t find my kümmel or Dreiling, but I did get a bottle of Hungarian Unicum at a shop called Edeka (Segringerstrasse 1) for €16.99.
Unicum is an herbal digestif liqueur, produced by the Zwack family, according to a secret formula made from more than forty herbs aged in oak casks.
You can’t get the stuff in the U.S., but you can get a sweeter Americanized version called Zwack.
I’ve always wanted to try the real thing.
Edeka was also selling all sorts of local delicacies.
They did have some Bavarian kirschwasser (= cherry water, or traditional local cherry brandy) as well, but I passed for now.
I want to see what else is out there.

I also liked the artwork on chocolate bar labels painted by Jaak De Koninck, but I suspected that the product inside was second rate.

So that was a pleasant little town, but I have to admit that after passing through a bunch cute little towns already today, I am over it.
I was thinking back to my visit to Bruges (in Belgium) last year, and of places like Trinidad in Cuba and even, even, Chagrin Falls near my home town of Cleveland, and I do believe that I have had my fill of cute little touristy towns.
From Belgium to Ohio to Cuba to Germany, and they’re all kind of the same.
Different architecture, but the same atmosphere.

Photographed the stone remains of an interesting structure on the way out of town (seen to the right; the only sign neaby said "keep off the structure"), and then old bridge (or the ruins thereof), and then it was back on B25.

By 3:40 pm, I was in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, more or less the end of the line for the Romantic Road.
I basically spent five hours on this drive.
Yes, I could have seen the Augenblick in Nördlingen, and had a leisurely lunch in Dinkelsbühl, maybe stayed over at a B+B in some other town, hung around to do some more in-depth photography, and made two days of this drive, and I can see how that might be fun.
But that said, I also don’t feel like I skipped a ton by doing it in a day.
But there is more to see in this part of Germany: I haven’t even technically entered the Schwartzwald (Black Forest) yet, and that’s what I wanted to do tomorrow.

In Rothenburg ob der Tauber, I ate some dough ball pastries called schneeballen (snowballs, I think).
They’re made up of very long and thin strips of crumbly pastry (a texture like pie crust) but shaped almost like linguine, and mushed up into a ball while soft.
Schneeballen are then covered with either powdered sugar (puder zucker) or chocolate or brown sugar.
Baseball-sized ones were the norm, but two small golf-ball sized ones “baby schneeballen” were plenty for me (€1.10 each for a powdered and a brown).

Photographed their city gate, after waiting forever for various clueless people go get the hell out of the way.
Who stands around having an idle conversation in front of something that everyone in the immediate vicinity is trying to photograph?
Step away, and yap all you like!

A cuckoo clock shop sells clocks for as much as €1500.
I suspect I will see more of this in the Schwartzwald.

Also shot pics of a cool sundial incorporated into the side of a building (below left), and some other intresting bits of architecture (the next pics below and on the right).

Here again (immediately to the right) we see the legend of St. George and the Dragon, so prevalent all over Germany. 
It is interesting to me how the dragon is never portrayed as a whale-sized monster as in contemporary fantasy novels; it
is always seen as something half the size of a horse. 
Not much bigger than, say, a pig. 
Actually, the one seen here, to the right, is a rather large specimen.
If you think about it, a real-life dragon, even a pig-sized one, would be pretty scary and freak just about anyone out, so they don'treally need to be very big to be impressive.


By 4:34 pm, I was headed towards the Castle Road and then on to the A6 autobahn.
I wanted to get to Baden Baden at a reasonable hour, so I can’t linger on the Castle Road.
One day, I will drive a substantial bit of it and see all of the ruins.

But I did stop to see one castle, high on a hill.
Turns out they’ve made it into a hotel.
I didn’t go inside.
There were lots of deer on the hill, but it seemed like they were fenced in on the hillside.

€33.02 for gas.
I got 413.9 km (257 miles) out of my first tank, and I still have a quarter of it left.
There were no clowns at this gas station.
Yet.

6:53 pm
Along the A6.
I am not really a speed demon, usually, but I didn’t feel like I could let myself drive the autobahn without hitting 161 kph (100 mph) at least once.
Unfortunately, this crappy little Hyundai just wouldn’t let me creep much past 150 kph.
I maintained that dizzying speed for a while, watching the gas gage visibly droop every time I hit the pedal, but the lil’ auto just wouldn’t cross the magic threshold for me.
This experience was not nearly as emasculating as I might be making it sound.

Finally, I gave up, and pried my white knuckles off of the wheel, easing back to a relatively cozy cruising velocity in the 130s and 140s.
Picked up the A5.
Several hot air balloons are floating lazily through the air to my left.
They are too slow for this road.
Relatives of the Montgolfier brothers, no doubt.

8:23 pm
Made it to my final German place of lodging, the Hotel-Restaurant Altenberg (Schartenbergstasse 6) in Neuweier, a small town in wine country, just south of Baden Baden.
For €50.20 per night, I had a clean and serviceable little room with a small patio which overlooked a courtyard behind the winery next door.

My view was a big area of grass and the back of an ancient two-story brick building fifty yards away.
It seems that the bathroom was once shared; it exists between an inner and an outer door to the room; the additional door allowing access the loo from the hallway is now locked.
Free Wi-Fi in the room.

The hotel is on a tiny residential road with the winery’s grape orchards directly across the street.
A small canal runs next to the street, decorated with wrought iron fencing and lots of flower boxes.

That's the road right in front of the hotel in the pic to the right; the pic below that is the view of the vineyards, shot by turning around and looking directly across the street.

Rolling hills directly across the street are all covered with row after row of grapes, stretching off for miles.
This town isn’t another of the tourist towns I have come across so often today; this is where locals live.
The sense of being in a place where people conduct their lives, as opposed to being in a place of “manufactured quaint”, is palpable.
I like it here much better than Dinkelsbühl or Füssen.

If one continues just a kilometer or so east along the road that brought me from A5 to these lodgings, one shoots straight into the heart of the Schawrtzwald.
I am right on the edge of the forest, exactly on the clearly-defined border between dense trees and big open vineyards.

The dirndl-clad middle aged frau at the check in desk (once again behind the bar in the restaurant) was very friendly.
Friendly in a warm and real way, a motherly way, not an "I must be nice to the hotel guests" kind of way.
I liked her.
She indicated that there was a private party in the restaurant tonight, and that tomorrow they were closed for their weekly night off. So I’d have to go into Baden Baden to eat.
It was getting late by local standards, so I got a move on it.

Made it to Baden Baden, 3 kilometers away, before 9:00 pm.
The last blue of dusk was just setting.
Baden Baden, as it turns out, is a rather ritzy sort of town, and I was glad, oncew again, that I'd decided on Neuweier as a home base for the next two nights.
Might be tough to find an affordable meal in Baden Baden, especially at this hour.
There weren’t many people out and about, but the ones I did see are expensively dressed, and I do believe I spotted at least one Bentley on the road. Little spur roads run from the town up into the mountains.  I drove around up there for a few minutes. 
Nice houses with great views. 
Reminds me of the hills of Hollywood.

Found a cool old abandoned property at the bottom of the hill, in stark contrast to all of the nice hillside houses I just drove past.
A giant iron gate, at least twelve feet high and hundreds of years old, guards a completely abandoned lot, overgrown with seven-foot-tall shrubbery.  The grass is tall, obscuring any remaining trace of the building that once stood here.
Prototrees.
Doubtlessly, an impressive mansion once stood here; I suppose that if it had been a castle it would have been higher up on the mountain.
It would be easy to walk around the gate, but probably dangerous in the dark.
Tall grass and uneven terrain obscuring ruins doesn’t make for good exploration at night.

Pointing the Hyundai at the gates, I used the headlights and hi-beams to illuminate the property for the photo to the right.
A small rectangle of brick, the only extant bit of visible architecture behind the gate, ended up being the top of an intact stairwell leading down to what might have once been a basement.
The door at the bottom of the weed-infested stairs is still there, and is probably locked.
No way am I going down there right now.

Back into the nearly deserted center of town, I wandered and explored.
Saw the Kurhaus, a spa resort, casino, and conference complex.
It was designed in 1824 by Friedrich Weinbrenner.
Within the Kurhaus is the Casino Charles Jourdan.
The casino began to achieve international fame in the mid-1830s, when gambling was forbidden in France.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Gambler was inspired by the Kurhaus.
Marlene Dietrich called it "the most beautiful casino in the world."
From the lobby I could see that the gaming room was super-swanky, a real James Bond sort of place.  It costs €5 just to walk in, however, and I am not much of a gambler, so I passed. 
The large lobby area was mostly empty, the upstairs level was closed, and the lounge was nearly deserted.  A handful of middle aged couples in the lounge watched a trio perform really bad and outdated pop.  Two forty-ish keyboard players (a man and a woman) traded vocal duties while an electronic drummer kept time.  They were awful, but they fit the vibe of the room, which was very dark and lit with neon.  It reminded me of places I avoided in the 1980s.

Next to there is the Trinkhalle (= pump room), a very wide building that devotes as much real estate to its patio as it does to the interior.
The building is locked up for the night, but there are fourteen interesting murals of history paintings outside.
A branch office of Baden-Baden's tourist information bureau is located in this historic structure, which is the gateway to the city's famous spa or hot springs behind the building.
A teenage boy and three girls were out there drinking.

Who knew that Baden Baden was the swanky resort part of Germany?
Glad I am not staying directly in town.
I am keepin’ it real on the South Side, yo.

Wandered a zone of little cobblestone streets lined with really expensive designer shops.
Made long-exposure photos of a fountain...

Decided there was no food here this late and headed back towards my room, 3 km away in Neuweier. On the way, I drove through a less ritzy neighborhood and discovered a casual little kabob place that was still open. It seemed to be sort of one step above fast food.
It will do.
Got a snack of brats with fries for €3.50. Considered getting a pizza for €6, but decided it was too late for a big meal. I soon regretted that: a couple of other people got pizza and it looked incredible. Far better than what I expected from this place. The guy making them was using a huge platter, putting a full pizza and a fresh-looking green salad, and a pile of doner meat all on the same big plate. He made three or four of these big meals, and they all looked great. These people were getting a huge and fresh-looking meal for very little money.

It smelled so good, and looked so good, and I was starving.
When my snack came up it just looked limp and brown.
The greasy brats didn’t even come on buns, they were just solo in a paper tray with generic fries!

Ate in the car as I drove beck to Neuweier, and got to bed early.


Thursday, August 26, 2010

A btit after 9:00 am... Out of my room, and into the dining room for a nice breakfast. Just what I needed after last night’s dinner disaster. The buffet here is large and tasty with a mix of European and just a few American selections. I loaded up for the coming day on fresh brie and nice looking meats (all much better than the relatively meager pickings at the Seegasthof yesterday), plus some eggs, pineapple, raspberries, and o.j. The woman who checked me in last night offered me a hard-boiled egg. I couldn’t refuse. A Japanese man was a few tables over, slurping away as he ate (as they do). A middle aged man read his paper as his wife stared impassively off into space, barely moving at all for the entire time I was in the room. She was a human statue.  I pegged her as that archetypical character in all of the movies and literature: ignored by her husband for decades, she is dreaming of a life that involves love.  But she has security and a certain sense of reliable comfort with this man, who is not mean to her, but who also doesn't give her emotional fulfullment. Also at breakfast was a strange old lady with a voice lower than mine (a deep baritone) who sounded like a demon when she spoke. She must have been ninety years old and four-foot-eleven. Her white hair was sticking straight up. There is a large Joan Miro exhibition happening at the Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden. As much as I like Miro, I have visited just about enough museums this trip. I want to spend this last full day of my trip deep in the woods. Specifically: I’d drive the Schwarzwaldhochstrasse. That one is a mouthful. Schwarz = black Wald = forest

Hoch = high
Strasse = street.

I hit the road by 9:42 am.
Sunny and blue skies.

Schwarzwaldhochstrasse begins on the B500 in Baden Baden and ends in Freudenstadt, about 28 miles away.
This scenic road runs through some of the most picturesque parts of the Black Forest, passing through a lot of wilderness and a few small towns.
This wilderness is amazing and is the primary reason I decided to make this drive.
As stated yesterday, the towns do all look the same after a while.
Any of them is equally interesting, provided it is the first one you see.
I certainly saw planty of small towns yesterday, so all it's about nature today.

I was able to drive just a mile or so down the street from the Altenberg hotel, and pick up the Schwarzwaldhochstrasse just a little ways in.

The road ascends quickly, rising to an altitude of nearly 1000 meters, and then winds along high mountain ridges.

I drove slowly, savoring the nice weather, and the contrast between segments where I passed through deep forest, versus zones where I hugged the edge of high mountain cliffs, able to see hundreds of miles into the distance.
It was sunny, pleasant, a mild breeze.
A good day for a forest drive.
Driving slowly, I was passed by tour busses and motorcycles.

A giant stone staircase at the top of a hill leads straight up to nowhere.
Just up into the air.
No platform or anything at the top.
I climbed it for a scenic view of the valley below.

By 10:06 am, I had come across an even better scenic overlook, and in fact it might have been the scenic overlook to end all scenic overlooks.
That's it to the right, judge for yourself.

Just after passing Hornisgrinde, the highest mountain in the northern black forest (1164 meters), the road reaches the Mummelsee, a small lake that is almost exactly circular.
I thought I might park and hike up to the lake, but when I got there, I discovered that the lake is right next to the road.
Not much of a hike.
Throngs of tourists had already invaded the area on this fine morning.
I was definitely not going to be alone with nature, that's for sure.
A lot of little kids and a lot of elderly people were walking the path around the lake, which took only twenty minutes at a slow pace to complete.

Along the way, I saw informative signs about the area (there is some sort of mermaid-type mythos at work here), and a cool old stone hut up on a hill in the forest.
I thought that some sort of Brothers Grimm woodsman character might live there.
In reality, it was abandoned.
It was full of trash inside.

I also discovered a little underground stream that had pushed its way directly under the trunk of a great old tree, and was emptying into the lake from right under the tree’s root system.

A teenager vacuuming the insides of rental paddleboats could be heard as far away as the opposite side of the lake, somewhat spoiling the peace here.

Back in the car...
A few more small towns broke up the long stretches of absolute green.

Throughout the drive, I was looking for somewhere suitable to park the car and hike in the woods for a few hours.
But the “perfect” spot eluded me.

By 11:30 am, after changing from B500 to B28 (still Schwartzwaldstrasse, however), I reached Freudenstadt, and the end of the 28-mile Schwarzwaldhochstrasse.
Even driving slowly and taking in the tree-scrubbed forest air, it only takes so long to drive 28 miles. 
I mean, with stops factored in, my average speed was 14 miles per hour!

This was by no means the end of the Black Forest however; I had simply crossed from the west side to the east side of the long but narrow woods, heading in a southeasterly diagonal line, across the top third of it.
Schwarzwaldhochstrasse is a shortish road, and in the bigger context of the region, there is a whole lot more to see.

But first, a stop here in Freudenstadt.
There is a lot of good food here.
I spied local kirschwasser (cherry brandy) and other fruit liqueurs.
The famous Black Forest cherry chocolate cake is here too, along with lots of other cakes and pies in a delicious-looking bakery.
I also spotted an amazing basket of bright purple plums.

Sadly, all of this goodness was right around the corner for the unfortunately-named Badstrasse.
You are warned.
Very poilte of them to mark the bad streets so that we might stay away.

I decided on a southerly route to the town of Triberg, to see their famous waterfalls, the longest falls in Germany.
South of Freudenstadt, the road descends from the mountains, and winds along a beautiful river valley.
The forest is a bit less dense along this route.
Farms and even some industry (such as logging) appear.
More small towns.
The river was shining in the mid-day sunlight, and the farms and fields were absolutely glowing, radiating life.
Some of the quintessential Bavarian inns and barns have been modernized with big solar panels on the roofs.

Stopped for gas in Wolfach (€36). I was getting nervous because I was running really low. The first gas station I found was closed for lunch, as was most of the town! They had a strange system where one could put a credit card into a machine, pay, get a PIN number, and then enter that number into a pump to get gas. I struggled with it and could not figure it out. Rolled into Wolfach’s only other gas station, at the opposite edge of town, on fumes.

According to a sign along the road, Wolfach’s sister city is Richfield, Ohio. Richfield is a few dozen miles south of Cleveland. It was once known for a huge venue called The Coliseum, which hosted NBA basketball, pro hockey, soccer, wrestling, circuses, rock concerts, and flea markets. I went there a lot of times to see the circus when I was a very little kid, and later, I saw my first-ever rock concert there. It was demolished in the 1990s. Couldn’t find the ruins of a coliseum in Wolfach, but I will say that the town is a marginally more pleasant a place to visit than the desolate Richfield, Ohio.

Back on the road...
There are a lot of tunnels here, allowing access right through the center of mountains. Some of these tunnels are a few kilometers long.

House of Black Forest Clocks: must investigate.
Pulled over to the side of the road, across from the House.
A girl in a bikini top and short-shorts is standing next to her car staring off into the hills in the distance.
What does she see?
I see clocks.
Lots and lots of clocks.
One of them was awarded “clock of the year” and is priced at €1500.
All price tags indicated the clock price, the shipping price, and the insurance price.
Fridge magnets, steins, kirsch, t-shirts, dirndls, all kinds of crap.
Outside there are animatronic figures in a life-sized diorama.
A huge truck pulled up and parked right in front of it at the moment that I was about to take a picture.
Some guy started unloading empty cardboard boxes into the parking lot.

Like the Romantischestrasse, most of the towns I saw along the Schwarzwaldhochstrasse seem to only exist for the tourist trade, and most of them get rather samey, rather quickly.
Less so are the river valley towns I am currently finding along the road to Triberg.
Like Neuwier, hey’re a bit less contrived than the ones along the Schwarzwaldhochstrasse.
The people and their edifices in this part of the country definitely define Bavaria, but they don’t seem to be exclusively geared towards luring in tourists.
Yes, there are cuckoo clock shops (House of 1000 Clocks!), and irresistibly charming inns (gasthausen or guest houses), but it’s all a bit less forced.

It feels more like experiencing a culture, rather than visiting a theme park.

Until you get to Triberg.

This whole region has saved all of their most crass bits up, and corralled them all in Triberg.

But first: getting into town was an adventure in and of itself.
A bit past 1:30 pm, I overshot Triberg and ended up on the south road out of town.
Unfortunately, the road was one-way, and the road to get back into town was under construction.
There was literally no way to get into Triberg from the south.
These towns are connected by single roads through the woods.
I’d seriously have to drive ten kilometers to the next town, hang a left, find an alternate road north, and make a big circle through the forest, to re-approach from the north.
It would take an hour or more.
I did notice a small dirt road that led up to some homes in the mountains.
There might be other roads up there.
I thought make I could make my way back along those.
I only needed to go one kilometer.
I ended up on a dirt path, high above the town, with a steep drop and no guardrail to my right.
This path lead to another, and then another, and then a gravel road, and then a paved road, and eventually I had off-roaded it through little residential dirt tracks back to the town.
Nice detour route.

Finally in Triberg by 2:00 pm, I thought I might find a nice woodland hike to the falls (shades of Mummelsee), but I discovered that Triberg is another massive tourist zoo.
It is absolutely infested with people and traffic and cheap souvenir shops.
The whole area is completely merciless in its pursuit of your money.
Only the Schloss Hohenschwangau/Neuschwanstein area is worse.
There is a charge of €3.50 to see the falls.
It’s not as if someone built these falls or made any investment in them that they need a return on.
The falls were created by nature, and man doesn’t have to do a damned thing to maintain them.
But they certainly can be exploited, apparently.
So with absolutely no investment, someone is raking in a ton of cash here.
A network of trails crisscross the hills, and several of them lead to the falls; there are ticket booths staffed by elderly women at all key trail entry points so that you get charged no matter what direction you approach from.
Of course, these woods are dense and thick, so one could take a "scenic route" through the woods, off trail, circumventing the ticket booths.
I’m just saying.
If you really wanted to you could.
But that’s dishonest, right?

The water here falls 163 meters over seven steps. It is cool to see, but the thousands of rude tour groups, the price, and the tacky tourist trap environment make the experience a lot to contend with to watch some falling water for ten minutes.

It is cool in the forest, but really hot in the sunshine today.
The contrast is striking.

Little kids were throwing peanuts into the woods and watching the birds instantly swoop down to grab the nuts. I spent some time watching. The kids were having fun tossing food from the edge of the path into the woods, and the birds were getting a feast. Some of the birds were species new to me.
I managed to get a few shots.

I spent a stupid amount of time after I got back to the U.S. of A. looking up these birds on-line, trying to identify them.
You’d think that there would be an illustrated guide to the birds of Bavaria somewhere on the internet, but I sure couldn’t find it.
I am pretty sure that the one pictured below and to the right is a Eurasian Jay.
The other bird, a Nutcracker, was definitely living up to it’s name.

I also learned that there is a bird called a Great Tit.

“I was out with my camera stalking birds, and I saw loads of Great Tits!”.
Indeed.
Note that there are no Boobies in Germany, only Tits.
Think about this stuff too much, and you’ll eventually get a visit from the Stork, you Turkey.
Don’t mind me, I’m just having a Lark here.
Woodpecker.

3:05 pm.
After admiring the falls and the local Tits, I stopped into a Netto grocery store for lunch: a wheat roll, some (real) smoked salmon, a giant pretzel, and an apple for the bargain price of €2.82.
The checkout girl had great... manners.

I still hadn’t had a satisfying forest hike experience, and that was the main point of today. I did see some enticing paths into the wild along the Schwarzwaldhochstrasse, but I figured that there would be more of them later. I hadn’t anticipated the scenery changing so much. It is still definitely very beautiful in the area between Freudenstadt and Triberg, but the farms and valleys aren’t exactly what I had hoped for in my hike. I wanted a deep, dense, primeval forest of mystery. Thick woods, with trees that have been growing for centuries. The zone around Schwarzwaldhochstrasse was more like that. This part of Europe is crisscrossed with hiking trails. Some of them are hundreds of miles long and hundreds of years old. Driving around for the past few days, I spotted backpackers and bicyclists making their way across fields and farms, or up and over wooded hills, potentially walking all the way across Germany on this network of trails. The most famous of the trails is called Westweg. It passes through the town of Hausach, not far from Triberg, on the way back to Baden Baden. Although it is not quite the arboreal hike I’d hoped for, I thought that I might walk a few miles of the famous Westweg.

It was going on 4:00 pm by now, and I was growing frustrated that I hadn’t come across an area at which to perform my walkabout. I'd wanted to hike for perhaps four hours, at least.  As the west edge of the forest grew near, the landscape became more and more industrial, with logging facilities and factories popping up. The towns became more utilitarian, less picturesque. Before I knew it, I was on a main autobahn A-road, full of traffic, headed up the west edge of the forest towards a larger industrial town called Offenberg, about twenty miles south of Baden Baden.
Grrrr.
Well, the best thing to do would be to zoom up towards my home in Neuweier, and start over: I could pick up the Schwarzwaldhochstrasse again, right where I did this morning, retrace the first few minutes of today’s adventure, and grab one of the great trails up there. However, it was now well after 4:00 pm, and I was skeptical about the timing working out on this plan before it got too dark. I was also now back into wine country, and I saw plenty of vineyards everywhere. I hadn’t noticed any wineries offering tours or tastings, as you’d see in so many other wine regions around the world.
Or maybe I just didn’t know the words or the hints to look for. But anyway, next time I am in this region, I must build some more time for wining (and less time for whining) into the trip.

Passing through the town of Ortenberg (right next to Offenberg), I saw Schloss Ortenberg on a hill, and decided that I needed to inspect it.

If I can’t have a forest hike, then another castle will do.

The Black Forest, and verily all of Bavaria, is absolutely littered with castles; until the 20th century, every feifdom must have had one.
The local lords needed to be able to protect their lands, after all.

Schloss Ortenberg is now a hostel with sixteen rooms in it.
It’s pretty darned nice for a hostel.
I walked in and looked around, no one seemed to mind.

Then I walked around back, and gazed upon miles of vineyards all over the hills.

A set of spiral stairs within a tower lead to a terrace with a rose garden on it, but the gardens were looking rather dead and unkempt.

Another set of stairs within another tower led even higher to another very small terrace, and then still more stairs led up to the very top of the castle’s highest tower, where the whole valley can be observed.
Vineyards behind the castle cover the nearby hills.

Signs along the edge of the balcony point the way to a few dozen local towns and to a few large distant cities.
Paris is 417 km directly west.
New York is 6244 km almost directly west, just a few degrees north of due west.
Munich is 270 km away, almost exactly east, but just a touch north of east.

Paths lead up into the vineyards above and behind the castle, and are eventually replaced with forest at the tops of the hills, high up and beyond the vineyards.
I walked a little way up one of the paths.
Climbing all of those stairs, plus being outside in the direct sunlight made me really hot.
I trudged upwards, determined to get to the shade of the forest, and to have my long-postponed woodland excursion.
Then, two teenagers zipped by in a car.
You can drive on these paths?

I went back and fetched the car, and headed upwards.

The narrow paved path gave way to an even less substantial gravel track, and then to two strips of dirt with a strip of grass between them.

Into the forest, winding up the mountain, the earth sloped downward sharply just a few feet to my left, just as it sloped upwards to my right.
The tiny, rocky, narrow path twists and turns as it climbs higher and higher.
I don’t know what would have happened if I encountered another car on this road; there was barely enough width for one car, let alone two.
An attempt to pull off to the side to give someone else the right of way would result in plummeting to one’s certain doom.

I drove over pine cones and rocks and plants.
Every time I saw a fork in the path, I took the direction that went upwards, ever higher, and ever deeper into the woods.

Finally, the road ended at a small clearing where some logging had taken place.
A few dozen felled trees were bundled up and ready to be hauled down the hill.
But how?
No large truck could come up that dirt track.
They’d have to be brought down a dozen at a time (if that) in something not much bigger than a pickup truck.

I thought:
I am hundreds of miles from the nearest person who knows me.
I am thousands of miles away from anyone I am truly, truly close to.
No one knows where I am right now.
At all.
I am in a little rented Hyundai on a narrow dirt track high in the mountains at the edge of the Black Forest.
No one saw me come up here.
Maybe the lady at my hotel has a vague inkling that I am driving around somewhere in the Schwarzwald, because I mentioned it to her in passing, but that’s it.
I don’t mean to be dramatic, I did feel safe, actually.
But one becomes especially aware of their place in the world when isolated like this.
The great Joseph Conrad wrote: “We live as we dream, alone”.

I headed towards thicker air and flatter ground.
Ended up on the other side of the hill in a town called Albersbach, by 6:00 pm.

The next discovery for today was a self-serve flower farm.
Blumen zum selbstpflücken (=flowers to self-pick).
Vast fields of flowers had been planted, and people can help themselves to flowers for any occasion.
An honor system payment box lists the very reasonable prices (if I read it right: sunflowers €.50, gladiola €.60, and dahlias €.30).
The whole thing was rather picked over, but it’s a nice idea.
Very handy for dates, and anniversaries.
Hmmm... nice place to drink a beer too.
And I just happen to have one....

6:53 pm.
Damn, I didn’t get to really do a real forest hike.
Saw and did a lot of cool things today, but I really wanted to get lost in the woods for a few hours.
Who knew the whole route back from Triberg was going to be an industrial zone west of the forest?

Finally, I was getting close to Neuweier.
Since I happened to be driving right past the hotel anyway, I stopped in to clean up at about 7:37 pm.
Washed up a little, put on a less stinky shirt.
Big night out: my last night in Germany.
All alone in the ritchy bitchy and deserted little resort town of Baden Baden.

Rather than taking the B3 to Baden Baden, there is a route back through the Schwarzwaldhochstrasse.
Cruised a few kilometers into the darkening woods with 980.7 km on the odometer.
When I get to 1000 km, is that a megameter?

Stopped at a three-way schränke (= crossroads).
It is 4 km back to Neuweier, 7 km to Baden Baden, and 6 km to Steinbach.
Parked the car, picked a direction, and wandered off of the road.
The last of my daylight was going fast.
But damn it, I was determined to take a walk in these woods!
A short one is better than nothing.
Walked up a path, stopped, and stood very still listening to the birds and the bugs.
Observed the setting sun, the gentle breeze, heard just a few distant cars zooming down the road.
Walked off-path, into the woods, and examined some baby pine trees, just a foot tall, struggling to survive among their ancient and giant peers.
Just as the last of the light faded away, I realized that I was rapidly losing the ability to find my way back to the path.
I could see where it was, but I couldn’t navigate towards it without stepping in/on/through things that might impede motion or bring injury.
In other words: I’d end up falling on my ass if I didn’t get out of here.
I don’t need another black eye now that the first one is finally gone.
Time to go.

Next time I come to Europe, I want to visit either Italy or do a Budapest - Vienna - Prague run. But I really do tend to be city-centric when I travel. It might also be very cool to fly into Paris, spend a few days there again, and then drive east through French wine country, ending up here in Bavaria again. Now that I know which tourist trap towns to avoid, another Schwartzwald road trip would be good. More real forest hiking, some time visiting wineries, a trip along the Castle Road. Driving Paris to Prague, across southern Germany, with stops in the Black Forest and along the Castle Road would be hot.

8:46 pm.
I drove around the chi-chi part of downtown Baden Baden again. I couldn’t find parking, none of the restaurants looked good anyway, and rain clods were gathering.
Finally, I said (out loud, to myself): "What the hell am I doing?".
I don’t like this part of town anyway!
Headed back down B3 towards home, intending to find food in one of the two small towns along the way.
I passed a place called Sternen Beirgarten along the B3 in Sinzheim that looked kind of casual and pubish, and I decided it was my best bet. A few people were going inside, it looked relatively busy. I sat in their beirgarten at the end of a yellow plastic picnic table, with two athletic girls on the other end talking animatedly and ignoring me completely. The pretty blonde in a blue floral dress, reading a book alone at another table, was soon joined by a guy. There is a big fake cow here, painted brightly. I wanted German food and local beer.
I realized that I have never tried wiener schnitzel.
I realized that I didn’t even know what wiener schnitzel is.

I ordered Schnitzel Klassiker (€10.60) which turned out to be two flattened and fried pork cutlets. I think. It was served in a brown sauce, with a decent little salad and a big plate of frittes. When I took a picture of the food, the waitress asked me if I wanted her to take a picture of me with it. She was partly making fun of me, I think. I explained that I was a writer, and her attitude actually became more respectful. A Hofbrauhaus Hatz Weizen Dunkel (€3.20) and a .5 liter Kellerbier (€3.20) washed it all down. Not sure how a Weizen Dunkel works: that’s a dark wheat beer? A slight drizzle had begun, and when the rain picked up a bit, everyone ran inside. The waitress handed me a card with the number 305.1 on it. Must be to keep me joined with my bill.
Inside, I saw lightning through the glass block parts of the walls. It was getting nasty outside.  I didn't mind, in fact I liked it. 
Big thick books are hanging from ropes on pulleys above each table. Menus?
I was at the bar. There are a few random African figurines above the bar.
A carving that vaguely resembled a Marquesian tiki stood near the door.
I scribbled in my notes:
“Look for meaning where there is none.”
No, I shan’t.

I wanted to sample more locally produced herbal liqueurs, so I got a Blutwurz, made from the sunflower-like topinambur flower (2cl for €2.20). It tasted of a fair amount of cinnamon but with a nicely bitter finish.

There was a quiz game happening at the bar. A lot of people were filling in answers on written forms. Finally, a guy behind the bar, right in front of me, started reading off the answers and announcing the winners (in German, natch). I felt like I was in his way. People were applauding and cracking up as he read off all of the questions and answers. I only caught a few words: Ecuador, homepage, and Keith Haring. So random. The winner got a bottle of Ramazzotti amaro that had just been removed from a freezer. This stuff is actually really popular all over Germany, I saw it everywhere. Like the emcee, the Ramazzotti was also placed right in front of me. Frost began to condense on the bottle, and little whisps of steam floated off of the glass. The winner opened it up and started pouring shots onto a tray loaded with perhaps two dozen shot glasses. He offered me one. I accepted, and then called it a night. Ramazzotti, simply compared to Blutwurz, has less cinammon, more berry, and is much more bitter (naturally, as an amaro).

The rain had stopped for a sec, but it was super windy out. It seemed like it was really going to storm.
It did.
Then it stopped for a sec.
Time to jet back to the room.
Trip odometer is now at 10.3. It turned over to zero after 999.9. I missed my megameter mark.

11:17 pm.
I packed up my stuff and drank my last beer: Fortuna Hefeweissen. The big storm hit again, and was now coming down much worse, just as I was getting ready for bed.
Looking at some of the pictures on my camera, including the ones of the flower garden, I wrote (for no one in particular):

"Did you see this flower?
In this photo?
It was born, it lived a short time.
It was noticed by a few people.
But it was beautiful,
then it died,
having only been noticed, for all of its beauty, and everything that made it special, by too few people.
Just like you."

12:30 am
I opened the door to the balcony and tried to take some more night pictures, but I just got my camera and the carpet wet.
This storm is intense.
I listened to Eurythmics on iTunes: Here Comes the Rain Again.


Friday, August 27, 2010

Up before 8:00 am, couldn’t sleep.
Tried to make it happen for an hour, but but I gave up and got out of bed in time to make it to breakfast by 9:15 am. The only other people in the breakfast room were an older guy, and the same creepy insane lady from yesterday, who soon left. Turns out I have been paying €8 for breakfast the past two mornings. The food is very good, but it is still not worth it. The total room cost I was quoted was accurate, but there was an €8 fee rolled into that, which was itemized on my bill (total for two nights and two breakfasts: €118.60).

Before 10:00 am, I was on the road to Frankfurt. It is a grey and rainy day. I was told that the drive was about two and a half hours, and this was accurate, even with some rain, and some road construction. Getting close to Frankfurt, I pulled over to fill up the gas tank, and to stop at a market. I wanted to drop off a ton of water and beer bottles at one of those cool recycling automats. I had also wanted to get some local kirsch or some similar local liqueur, but nothing I’d seen in any of the small towns over the past few days really seemed appealing. This was my last chance. I might have done much better in a wine shop or even in one of the larger supermarkts, but the small grocery store in the Frankfurt suburb that I stopped in was my last chance, and it would have to do. Ditched all of my empties, and bought a bottle of kümmel, selected almost randomly (€8.74). The available assortment wasn’t so great, but I made the best of slim pickings. In this same suburb, I stopped for gas (€31.20), and then pulled in to a tiny cafe to ask for directions and to pee. Seemed appropriate to end the trip with one of the cafe's giant pretzels (€.90).

Returning the car was easy; it took about a minute to deal with. I put the mix CD that I’d found in the CD player back in for the next person. I hadn’t played it.

A letter from Hertz arrived on September 29, stating that I have been billed €23.80 for a traffic offense in Aktenz, on August 27 (that must be the suburb I just described running errands in). The letter indicated that Hertz had supplied the town with my contact information, and that Hertz were charging me an administrative fee for doing this. My credit card was charged for the administrative fee of €20 plus €3.80 tax. Tax on a fee? Highway robbery. Literally. No chance to appeal. They didn’t even tell me what I supposedly did wrong. I still don’t know. The town itself never sent me any sort of bill or notice of violation. Total scam from Hertz. The terminal was a short walk from the rental return area. My Kümmel and the Unicum that I bought a few days ago were supplemented with a bottle of Killepitsch from duty-free (€15.90). Security here is ridiculously inefficient. They have a separate security line for each gate. This means that the equipment and manpower are repeated over and over. Between flights the guards at each gate are all just standing around. Once past security, this airport has none of the usual airport amenities, like food or shops. The waiting area is uncomfortable and cramped. Bad design, all around. People will wait until the last minute to queue up for security if they want to wait in the more comfortable parts of the airport or use the food/shopping or other services. There must be rushes at the security line right when flights are boarding. Not good. Even the airport in Cuba is better than this one! On the flight home, I scored a bulkhead seat again, wrote a bunch of this journal, finished reading Death Kit by Susan Sontag, and watched two absolutely dreadful movies: Post Grad - Worthless except for that Alexis Bledel is dangerously cute, and Michael Keaton is fun as her dad. It is a tired coming-of-age-at-age-22 story. Why does Bledel’s character suddenly fall for her best friend? Because it fits the needs of the story, and no other reason. The Bounty Hunter - Did I actually watch a Jennifer Aniston movie voluntarily? I was on a plane! I have never seen one of her movies before, and she is just as vanilla as I have always suspected. Completely tired and predictable screenwriting. Why do movies like this still get made?

So...

This was a great trip.
I might have eaten a little bit better food, and I think that more time in Bavaria and the Black Forest would have been good. A bit more time with friends - and also not having had a black eye for most of the trip - would also have been enhancements. Bringing a significant other along for this trip might have been good too.
But an epic trip for sure.

Arriving back at my friend Sarah’s house in Chicago, I was greeted with the discovery that my car had two flat tires. I’d parked at her house, rather than at my own, just so that she could keep an eye on stuff like this. I’d specifically asked her - twice - to pay attention to the tires, in fact. Managed this scenario (glad my flight landed mid-day instead of at night!) and then finally made it home to find that my neighbor had emptied an entire 20-ounce canister of food into the turtle enclosure, rather than a few spoonfuls. There was soggy rotting food all over the place.
Can I not rely on anyone at all?

All righty, time to roll up my sleeves and start painting my living room....

A little post-trip accounting...
I ended up behind budget by €109.25, plus that €23.80 fee, or about $180 total.
Not a big deal.
Spent a grand total of $2284.38, or an average of $134.38 per day (and I have €12.62 on hand for my next trip).
If I’d paid full airfare and eaten better, this trip would have been $3000, easily. Glad I was able to work out the airfare on frequent flier miles; this allowed me to just barely afford to be able to do Alaska and Germany (plus a weekend in New Orleans and a week in Colorado!) all in the same year.

Next stop: China!
May/June 2011.