Schwarzwald

We stayed in Triberg and our guesthouse ended up being up in a mountain on a one-way dirt road!  But it had a great view!

 We drove into the town on Saturday and parked and had to take pictures with these statues first thing.  Easter Island wears a Bollenhut.  The Bollenhut is the pom-pom hat that is part of traditional dress in the Black Forest and is everywhere.  Real ones are really expensive though.

First thing in the morning we decided to hike the falls.  The Triberg Wasserfalle is the highest waterfall in Germany.  It's not a straight downward shot though so you can walk up to several different levels.  All beautiful.

He it's the whole family!  And the best we could do.

I think I need to print this picture out HUGE and hang it up on my wall!

They also sell bags of peanuts so that you can feed the squirrels.  We found a few but the birds wanted in on the food as well.

The kids loved that part of course!

We were playing at a park when a woman walked by with a falcon and told us that they have a bird show so we stayed for that.  It was a little long (probably because they had to translate to English for us after each section) but the birds were great and at the end they also had a ferret.  Apparently when they go rabbit hunting with falcons, they take ferrets along to flush them out of their burrows!

This is one of those signs where you stick your face it but they had actual faces that flipped down when it wasn't in use.  So when Abby stuck her face in, she looked like she was really part of the sign!

Then we went clock shopping!!  There are several cuckoo clock shops but we had already heard about Oli's.  He's a master craftsman who carves his own clocks and so that's where we went.  And we bought one!  Not your typical design but he says it's traditional and I love it.  And I haven't yet turned the cuckoo off so that's something.

After that we drove out to Gutach to an open air museum.  We've done these before and we always really enjoy them.  The explanations were in German and English (and French) so that was nice to learn as well as observe.  The traditional Black Forest farm house is HUGE.  It's literally an all in one.  The house portion is the front and the back is the barn.  The attic storey is big enough to store all your equipment -- wagons and everything -- and the houses are either built into the hillside or have a bank of earth on one side so that you can drive in and out of the attic.  The rooms are small and low-ceilinged and so dark and there are no chimneys.  Apparently the smoke of the fires helped dry the humidity of so many warm human and animal bodies in the building as well as smoking the meats.  Honestly, I could not live like that.

Also, as we drove through the mountains the next day, there are still houses like that are lived in.  Some have put in skylights for more light or have added chimneys but they look exactly the same.

There were animals of course and demonstrations going on.  We bought handwoven ribbons and bread baked with plums on top for a snack.

They had exhibits on farming and life in general, dress and customs, even a whole attic of kids stuff.  There was a playground that we didn't have time for and a forest learning center that the kids loved.  We were there 2 hours and didn't see it all before we had to leave.

The Bollenhut (red for single women and black for married) and below is a wedding hat.

Everyone and everthing wears a Bollunhut although we didn't see any one dressed in the traditional costume like I hoped!

On our way back to the guesthouse we drove to see the largest cuckoo clock in the world.  You can go inside and see the clock works during open hours but we were too late.  Honestly, we waited fifteen minutes for the cuckoo and we were underwhelmed.  But hey, we've seen it!

 Then we had dinner and I ordered trout.  First time I've had a whole fish served to me!  The kids were disgusted and fascinated at the same time.  But it tasted good!