Black Forest (IV): Gengenbach

Since we were in the middle of the Black Forest, we carried on to visit another of the recommended towns: Gengenbach. It is another historical town, with walls and towers. It was also very pretty, especially with the lights on, but it felt a little more dressed up than Schiltach.

It seemed like we had Schiltach to ourselves, but there were a lot more people looking at the lights in Gengenbach.



The 18th century town hall has 24 windows. They make up a life-sized advent calendar:

We wandered around in the gathering gloom before going for a nice meal. I had a wild boar stew with spaetzle. Very nice - it was probably the equal of the duck stew in Strasbourg.



In the UK, I've been trained to expect little in the way of public places to pee. At Kings Cross and the Victoria bus station, you have to pay to use the disgusting toilets, when by rights they should be paying for users' hepatitis treatment for going anywhere near it. In central London on a Friday night, trucks drive around offloading foul four-sided plastic urinals for the drunken revellers. Do not inhale when one of those trucks goes past. When Dick Whittington came to London on the promise that the streets were paved with gold, he would've found golden streets all right, but I hope he didn't tread in any of the golden puddles. I think that's how his cat died.


This is a wordy way of saying that although we were viewing the sights, I was somewhat distracted by the more important hunt for a toilet. There wasn't one at the station when we arrived, and things were getting desperate. I'm opposed to paying, but I eventually decided to use the pay-per-use public toilet in the main square. I put my money in, expecting there to be a small portaloo behind the door. Instead, a long, white, pristine staircase descended into the basement to one of the most luxurious toilets I've ever seen. Kudos Gengenbach.

Black Forest (III): Schiltach

On the second day, we caught a train into the Black Forest. We travelled through the hills to Schiltach, which is debatably the prettiest town in the area. The centre of the town is made up of medieval half-timbered houses up to 500 years old.







This is the cafe where we stopped for goulash and Black Forest cake. They had commemorative plates of the UK royal family around the walls. Psh, as if the Saxe-Coburgs have anything to do with Germany.



























Being perched on the edge of a river, the town floods on a semi-regular basis. The stones on the wall of this house record the heights of the highest floods.

Black Forest (I): Karlsruhe

In the holiday between Christmas and New Year, we travelled to the Black Forest region to explore.

If you're anything like us, the phrase "Black Forest" conjures a couple of mental images: cake, fur trees, and of course, cuckoo clocks.

Called it!

We also expected the region to be buried in snow, but we were wrong there. It was cool and rivers were full, but we only saw a few wisps of snow.

The trip turned out to be better than I expected - there are a lot of interesting sights in the area. We based ourselves in Karlsruhe, which was probably the least exciting option, but it was central for travel and saved us some money.

Only Interesting Building in Karlsruhe