Triberg and Titisee (12th-13th Sept)
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Everybody that’s been to Black Forest before says, “You have to visit Black Forest and try the Black Forest cake.” Nobody ever said where in Black Forest I was supposed to go. In fact everyone spoke of Black Forest as if it was THE destination when in fact the Schwarzwald is like 145km long and 40km wide with a large number of small to medium towns inside. Thanks for the informative travel advice guys! Helped a lot.
And so with the lack of helpful advice from friends, Jiahui and I sought to narrow down our choices as to where in Black Forest to head out to for the weekend. Baden-Baden was highly rated and was visited by some pretty swanky clientele. Emperors and shit. Definitely something that is befitting of my social status. However I think the nude dress code and co-ed spas were something that I couldn’t convince Jiahui to go for.
We finally decided on Triberg and Titisee. Yes. Titisee. We all love to see Titisee. Say it 10 times really quickly, it’s fun.
And so with my backpack looking freaking wicked we set off for Triberg on an early Friday morning. Arriving in Triberg 3 hours later we found the town blanketed in a densely packed drizzle – and boy was it cold – 12 degrees. After a quick but satisfying lunch, we headed up to the Hostel to deposit our backpacks…
… Only to find out that the Hostel was situated up on the slope of death. Here’s a big fat middle finger to the Lonely Planet guidebook that describes the death climb up to the Hostel as a 1200m uphill walk. Since arriving in Europe, I’ve climbed a lot. While Barcelona and Granada were tiring… this was just pure torture. The climb started out pretty easy but with every bend, the incline of the slope became steeper and steeper. By the time we were at the halfway mark on a street called Mozartstrasse, I was panting from the exertion, hot and sweaty inside my clothing but cold and miserable everywhere else because of the cold wet winds. I think we both had half a mind to just give up. But I convinced myself to push on because I knew for a fact that there were dancing fairies and elves roasting spits of pig and lamb for me at the Hostel. But when I reached the hostel, there were no fairies or elves. Just a sign that said check-in starts at 5pm. Now that was FUCKED up. I generally restrain myself from cursing on my blog but this deserves it.
The first place we visited from there were the Triberger Wasserfalls which were Germany’s tallest waterfall. We climbed all the way to the top (as if we haven’t climbed enough already) and were rewarded with some pretty nice views. The whole area was very picturesque and looked as if something plucked right out of a jigsaw puzzle. The best part was that I got up close and personal with the squirrels of Black Forest and even fed them peanuts out of my hand!
Next we went to the site of the World’s Largest Cuckoo Clock and were conned once again.As you can see from the picture, this was a really nice house and there were signs telling us, WELCOME! Please come in! Little did we know, the moment we stepped into the house, we had to pay 1.20EU because the inside of the house WAS also the inside of the World’s Largest Cuckoo clock. And you really couldn’t NOT pay. Because you’ve seen everything in the split second you peek into the place. And so we paid and we went outside to wait for the clock to hit 4:30pm so we could see the cuckoo clock in action. However when the time came, the lighting was so bad none of us could take a picture of the damn bird coming out. Sigh.
With nothing left to do in Triberg we headed back to the Hostel where we did the climb of death all over again. In all honesty, while the location was sadistic, the Hostel was actually a really nice place and they served very nice breakfast. The best hostel breakfast I’ve ever had in fact.
And so the next morning came and we headed out to Titisee. Or so we thought. Instead because we failed to understand the instructions on the ticket or rather, the lack of instructions on the ticket, we didn’t change trains when we were supposed to and ended up at Lake Constance which was at the border of Switzerland. We eventually made our way to Titisee but we lost 3 hours in the process.
But when we did get there, you can tell that Titisee is a beautiful place. It’s just such a small relaxed town with the main street wrapping around the edge of the lake. Across the lake you can see the rolling hills upon which the Black Forest sits and you can even take a boat out to the middle of the lake. Of course we got none of this because the rain was even heavier than the day before. Nonetheless the view was wonderful and the mist covering the Black Forest gave it its own mystical charm.
After a bit of souvenir shopping we called it a day and went back to Mannheim. All in all a wonderful weekend.
Things on my mind:
TittiesC
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Currywurst
Boobies
Gerger
Sprouting Nonsense Since 1984 {7:16 am}
