Bob:

Monika had found a weekend Volksmarch given in the town of Marbach about 42 kilometers from where we were staying, so we thought it would be fun to drive over and take part in that. We had another great breakfast at our pension and, after warming up the car to melt the rime ice coating it, were on our way. Navigation was slightly more difficult for Monika because the town was so small that it did not appear on any of our maps. Still, we knew about where it was and worked our way out of the "high" Black Forest region where all the low mountains are and into a rolling plain where most of the hilltops were still forested but the wide, open valleys were cultivated. This "low" Black Forest area reminded me of the Piedmont area in Virginia where the Blue Ridge Mountains transition to the coastal plain with a similar hilly landscape, except that in this section of Germany the stands of tall, dark green fir trees that characterize the Black Forest were clustered on the hilltops.

We found the starting point by simply driving into Marbach and looking for traces of a Volksmarch. Monika spotted a walk route sign and we kind of followed that to the city Turnhalle, which was a building consisting mainly of a big gym that had been converted into a huge banquet area by the insertion of rows and rows of tables and chairs. Knowing that at least we wouldn't starve, we signed up for the walk and started off. The standard way the Germans organize these weekend events is to start with a combined trail for the 5, 10, and 20 kilometer routes. Then after a while the 5 kilometer route splits off and returns to the start/finish point while still later the 10 kilometer route splits off and returns to the finish point, and the 20 kilometer walkers continue on for the final longest loop.

In this case, the first part of the walk wound up and out of the small town of Marbach and straight into the woods that covered most of the top. At the very top, however, we found both a big radio or TV broadcast antenna and a small memorial to the victims of a small plane crash at that site in 1986. I thought it was nice that someone had put up a memorial for those victims. Also near the top of the hill was our first checkpoint where we had our start cards stamped, had a glass of what tasted like hot raspberry juice, joked with the guy staffing the checkpoint, and continued on our way.

Monika:

Bob:

As we came off the crest we re-entered the woods and wound our way back downhill to the highway we had just driven in on, and at that point the 5 kilometer trail split off to the left along the highway and returned directly to town. We were doing the 10 kilometer trail, of course, so we turned right and followed the highway out of town to a crossing which was also staffed by a club member acting as a crossing guard for walkers crossing the street. That was probably a good idea because although the speed limit on highways between towns is 100 kilometers per hour unless otherwise marked, some of the German drivers are trying to go quite a bit faster, and that's a bad combination with relatively slow moving pedestrians. They also used "Caution Walkers" signs on both sides of the crossing point, but I still think the crossing guard was a good idea.

So we crossed safely and started the second section of the walk through the cultivated fields on the valley floor. Just like we found in the old East Germany during Wanderung 2, the cultivated fields in this area did not seem to have any fences at all, and that made it quite easy for the folks routing our walk. Some of the fields had just been plowed under, but some were clearly just sprouting a new green growth for some kind of winter crop. I thought I saw a small, thin, grass-like crop that might have been winter wheat, but there was also a leafy green vegetable of some type that might have been a winter cabbage or something similar. The lack of trees or hedgerows along the sides of the fields gave us excellent vistas in all directions. Off in the distance we could clearly see the low rolling hills with patches of forest on them and little towns usually nestled in the adjacent valleys. One big town or small city we saw was Villingen, where one of the new permanent year-round events is located, and you would no doubt get a similar flavor for the low Black Forest area by walking the Volksmarch there.

The second checkpoint was a big tent with not only the free hot juice but also sausages, hotdogs, and rolls that you could purchase for a heartier snack. We weren't really hungry yet so we just had the juice after having our cards stamped and were once again on our way to the finish point. We curled back into Marbach and wound our way back to the Turnhalle where we had our cards stamped, but we still weren't hungry enough to eat so we started driving back to the Schluchsee by some side roads I had found on the map.

Monika:

Bob:

The first part of the drive was along the valley floor where we slowly drove through a series of picturesque little villages. Unfortunately I was not driving slowly enough and I was "blitzed" to use the German word. That means that one of those automatic speed cameras has caught you going over the limit and taken a flash photograph of your license plate so that you can be sent a speeding ticket. It's all rather civilized in some sense, but also very frustrating for the foreigners driving in Germany. The local folks, you see, know where all these speed traps are located and they will speed like crazy and then brake quite sharply and unexpectedly just before encountering one to avoid getting blitzed. We foreigners, of course, don't have a clue about where the local speed traps are located, so we buzz along merrily at the prevailing speed and then get zapped. The safest thing to do when driving in Germany is to follow a car with a local license plate, which you can tell by the first two numbers on the plate if you know the district you are driving in, which of course I didn't.

Ah well, as if to make up for that, the rest of the drive was very pleasant. We started winding into deeper stands of the Black Forest and gradually into the more mountainous areas on our way back to the Schluchsee. I was starting to get hungry and becoming somewhat concerned by the complete lack of cafes, restaurants, or Gaststaette in the smaller and smaller towns and villages we were passing through, but just in the nick of time I found a roadside Imbiss in a kiosk beside a small stream. Although there was a pretty sawmill located just across the stream from the kiosk, there wasn't any real town and the main customer base supporting the kiosk appeared to be the folks walking the trail located just in back of it. So there seems to be a real pattern in Germany of having very tiny food joints located at some rather deserted, backwoods locations where they survive by folks walking or driving by and stopping off to eat. This kiosk was a real building with bathrooms and everything, but some of those joints were not much bigger than a phone booth on steroids. Almost all the time, however, we were served on real plates with real silverware as we were at that kiosk, and I do enjoy eating with real stuff rather than paper plates and plastic utensils.

Refreshed by the meal we continued through the forest up the moutains and back down to Seebrugg where we turned right to get back to the town of Schluchsee. We had stopped off at an Aldi along the way to pick up the rolls, meat, and cheese for dinner. But when we got back the bed looked just so inviting that I fell into it for a nice two hour nap while Monika worked on the puzzles and brought her journal up to date. After dinner she watched TV and I got to use the computer for updating my journal. By swapping off in that way we are able to get by with just one computer, but boy did we keep that sucker hot! Then we just both relaxed for the rest of the evening in preparation for the big drive down the Rhein River that we had planned for the next day.

Monika: