Wanderung 15

Volksmarching through Germany and a Cruise to get back.

September-November 2007

Tuesday, October 16th - Drive to the Schwarzwald (Black Forest).

Bob:

The day dawned really foggy, but bad weather days are often a good days for us to change locations because we like to use the good weather to wander about. While getting ready for breakfast I told Monika about the GPS I had seen at Aldi the previous day, and she was quite interested since we might very well be taking more driving tours of various parts of Europe. For my part, I was really tired of getting lost while driving in rural Germany! So after breakfast we paid our bill, stopped off at Aldi to buy the GPS for 200 Euros, and then started crawling along some two lane highways West by Northwest toward the Black Forest region in southwestern Germany.

The total distance that day was only about 150 kilometers, but except for a brief stretch of Autobahn our speed was very slow. Despite creeping along at about 20-30 miles per hour the driving was quite stressful because I was constantly trying to see as far as I could into the fog. So the drive took about two and a half hours and I was surprisingly tired when we arrived on the Schluchsee. We found the pension Mattenhof on the edge of a village beside the Schluchsee (Canyon Lake), but once again no one was there when we arrived. After calling the number listed on the door using our cell phone (thank you again, Detlef!) we arranged with the owners to be there at 5 p.m. for checking in.

That gave us most of the afternoon free, and since the first order of business was to find a place for lunch, we walked over the village next to the pension. The weather had cleared up into a bright, sunny day (after I was done driving, naturally!), so we had nice views of the lake as we walked into town. We finally settled on lunch in the verandah of a small cafe that overlooked the town square. After lunch we walked every street we could find in the hopes of finding a bakery for some dessert, but no luck. So we walked back to the car and drove about 6 kilometers back down the road to a Lidl store where where we were pretty certain we would find some low fat meat, cheese, yogurt and broetchen for our evening meal, and we were happy to see a bakery right beside the Lidl store where we found fresh broetchen and, at long last, a streusel for our dessert.

Monika:

Time to move on. Over breakfast, Bob told me about a GPS he had seen at Aldi, that looked like the new one at home, but had maps for all of Europe and cost only 200 Euros. We decided to head back to Aldi before going on our merry way. The GPS really looked like something that would be very useful in Europe, and hey, you never can have too many GPSs, can you? So we forked over the 200 Euro and put the box in the trunk to be looked at in detail in the evening. We looked at the Spieloteque, and it was open and did not have anyone loitering outside. So we decided to go inside, to at least look at our email. We enjoyed reading all the comments of kith and kin (and friends). We then looked at the ratings of the hotels around the Titisee and found one for 60 Euro per night that had a rather high rating. We noted the address, but did not book it, since, even though there did not seem to be any shady characters around, we still would not want to give out a credit card number.

We now had a goal in mind and so went off into a very foggy morning. The Bundesstrasse unfortunately had only two lanes, and with heavy truck traffic and heavy fog it was not a lot of fun for Bob to drive. Although we were driving along the Bodensee, we could not see a blessed thing. Only when we started to get into the Black Forest did it suddenly clear up, and there was blue sky, sun, and a beautiful landscape. From then we kept having a little fog but mainly clear sky. When we got to the pension on the Schluchsee, no one was there, but again, they gave a telephone number. When I first dialed, I put in an extra '1' since the German '/' looked like an American '1'. Note, in Germany, '1's always have two distinct strokes not to be confused with a '7'. Anyway, on my second attempt I reached a very nice woman, who told us that they had a room for us, but would not be back until 5. That was ok with us. We could leave the car and head to the Schluchsee (village and lake) and find lunch. Using Bob's old handheld GPS we headed to the lake, and then checked each of the restaurants for menu and prices. We finally found one we liked and sat down on the balcony of the second floor. It was warm, sunny and we overlooked the market square, noting the passing of the time by the chimes of the village clock. After lunch we looked in vain for a bakery for dessert.

Bob:

We still had a couple of hours to spare and the weather was by this time perfectly clear, so we drove another 6 kilometers up a mountain and then took a cable car up to the top of the Feldberg, the highest peak in the Black Forest. The cable car was a lot of fun, and from the top we could see the Black Forest stretching away from us over the gentle mountains for many miles in all directions. We could even see as far away as the Titisee to the northwest and the Schluchsee to the northeast. However, there were clear patches on some of the slopes that looked like farms and small towns down in some of the valleys. We had already seen some logging trucks on the roads, so it was clear to me that the Black Forest is more like one of the National Forest regions in the U.S. rather than a National Park.

Monika:

We had noted a Lidl store about 8K up the road and decided to do our shopping for the evening meal. After that I noticed a sign for a cable car to the top of the Feldberg, the highest mountain in the Black Forest. The weather was still beautiful, blue sky and sunny, and we still had two hours to kill before we could get into our room. So we followed the sign. It was fun taking the cable car up to the top. The views could have been spectacular, but the air was still somewhat hazy, so we could not see the Alps in the distance. But for all that, it still was a beautiful view.

Bob:

We were on our way back down in the cable car when our phone rang; it was the proprietor of the pension saying that she was caught in traffic and would be a little late in meeting us. That gave us more flexibility with the time, so when Monika saw a sign for "Schuppenhoernle" that reminded her of a place she had stayed in the Black Forest region when she was 12, we decided to follow the road and see if we could find it. After winding up the road to the top of the small mountain, we did indeed find her old vacation home, and Monika could even show me where she had played and about where she had stayed in the building. The building was much bigger than she remembered, but it still seemed to be serving as a children's vacation home since they had a really nice play area and 10-20 children of the rambunctious ages were tumbling about.

Monika:

When I was young, I was sent to a children's home in the Schwarzwald for 6 weeks to gain weight (yes, there was a time when I was really thin). Let me explain a little more about that. During the war and in the hunger years immediately after the war, the health insurance company decided that it was in their best interest, to send children who were underweight and had other traumas left from the war for six weeks to a vacation home, where they would get plenty of food and rest, doctors care, and in general a friendly healthy environment. Till I was a teenager, I was always underweight, I also had problems falling asleep. So in 1948 I was sent for the first time to the Black Forest. I do not remember much of that trip, except that there was a big verandah around the house. The room of the little kids, including me, was situated so that when we needed to go to the bathroom at night, we either had to go through the room where the big kids slept, or through the dark dining hall and then along the verandah. I tried to avoid going to the bathroom at night, but did have to go once, and oh boy, was that scary. Luckily, the big kids were awake, so I could get back through their room.

When I was 12, I was again sent to the Black Forest. I remembered somewhat more from this trip; it was near the Titisee. It was a bigger house with a large terrace where we would do gymnastics and play ball. I also remembered that it was surrounded by a large meadow When we had been driving to the Schluchsee, the names of the towns just to the west of Schluchsee - Altglashuetten and Falkau - sounded awfully familiar. I tried to remember, exactly were the place was. But we had been driven there by bus, and once at the home, we never left it except to go for hikes. So I knew it was outside of the town. Since we still had some time, we decided to drive through the town, and there the name of a street "Schuppenhoernle" rang the final bell. We kept driving on the road higher and higher until we came to a place that looked familiar. But my had it grown over the last 50 years. We parked the car and walked up the drive way. When I read the sign "Haus Schuppenhoernle", I knew we had found the right place. the big veranda where we played ball was still there. But the home itself looked about three or four times as big. We still heard children's voices and it is still listed on a map as a Kinderheim (Children's home), so we thought it may still be used for the same purpose.

When the weather was good, we would take walks or play on the veranda or on the lawns. When it rained we would do crafts inside. Once a week we would be weighed, to make sure, we gained weight - after all that was the reason we were here. But my best memory from that time was, that I met a very nice girl from Blankenese near Hamburg who aspired to become a dancer. She told me about her dance teacher who also had classes for older beginners. When I came home, I convinced my parents to let me take lessons together with my friend who lived close to Blankenese. I went to these classes for several years and enjoyed them very much.

Bob:

After that trip down nostalgia lane, we returned to the Pension Mattenhof, signed in and were very pleased to find that this was again a non-smoking room. We settled in for the night and had dinner from the foodstuffs we had purchased that afternoon at Lidl, and then we read, watched TV, and took turns working on the computer for the rest of the evening. The decor of our room was, by the way, quite different from our previous bed and breakfasts. Our room had two antique shranks or clothes chests, one with a TV and two dolls on it, and another with a black clothes dummy wearing a blond wig and a big hat with puffy red balls affixed to the top. The decor was completed by dark green walls with red gingham checked curtains, an overhead light made of antlers of elk or deer or reindeer or some such animal, and one wall with a big picture mural of an old farmstead on it. The overall effect was dark but restful and we did enjoy the balcony on the first couple of days while the weather was still warm.

When I was able to peek into some of the other rooms, I found that Pension Mattenhof had some of the most diversely decorated rooms I have ever seen anywhere. One of the other corner rooms had light wood paneling and was decorated so as to mimic a old fashioned hunting lodge or something, very restful but in more of wood-toned fashion than our room. Another corner room had an angel on the door and it was decorated mainly in pinkish hues with angelic figures, giving the room a decidedly cherubic but warm impression. A room across the hall had a patch of zebra skin on the front door, and I dubbed that the "Africa" room; inside it was decorated mostly in black and white with a large curtain of silver and black bangles, which struck me as being visually exciting but not as restful as our room. The final side room I peeked into was decorated in an extremely modern fashion with futuristic plastic tables and things; it gave the impression of a space ship ready for lift off! So if you visit the Pension Mattenhof, you might want to ask to see the available rooms if you have a strong preference in decor.

But we felt that the proprietors and how they treated us was really much more important than the decor. These folks were unfailingly nice and helpful in giving us maps and advice about where to walk or how to get certain places. They even offered to pick us up if we missed the last train back to Schluchsee and I think they were quite sincere in making that offer. Now none of the places we stayed had unfriendly folks, but most are what I would call "business friendly". Folks that are genuinely interested in you and what you are doing are quite rare, I think. So if you are staying in the area you might want to check out the Pension Mattenhof, either for seeing an extreme diversity of room decors or for meeting some very nice proprietors.

Monika:

After having satisfied my curiosity, we drove back to the pension. The proprietors were there and showed us a room. The room was decorated in a Black Forest theme with a large mural on the wall, and a glassed in balcony, where we sat and watched the sun go down over the low mountains covered with fir trees.


 


 


 

Copyright 2008 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt
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