2 posts tagged “schwarzwald”

So anyway, here's the Münster:


See, the problem with enormous, gothic, German churches is that there's almost no point in taking photos, because they're too big and too atmosphere-y (which is ruined with the flash).

One cool thing about this church, though, is that you could go back behind the altar/stage area, and there were about ten individual chapels (the first picture is of one of the chapel altars).  The university heads, the high-ranking clergy, and extremely rich families could have one of these chapels - for quite an offering I'm sure.

We tried some Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte (Black Forest cake) at a trendy-looking cafe on Rathausplatz, and were thoroughly disgusted.  Though I was first shocked that it looked exactly like what Americans call "Black Forest Cake", I was overall grossed out by the [traditional] addition of Kirschwasser, a "clear brandy".  They used too much and it was astonishingly foul.

We then went to the Wentzingerhaus Museum, which had dioramas and historical tidbits relating to Freiburg.  It also had a round staircase that rose up to a Rococo (or so they tell me) mural on the ceiling that flowed into a few complimentary wooden figures along the top of the wall.  Meh.  The photo I posted earlier of Freiburg after the war was also in this museum.

Oh, and they had a reproduction of a medieval stone hoister-upper, which really elucidated the concept for me.  I'd always kind of wondered how the pincers "gripped" the stone.


Having with that essentially covered the whole Altstadt (it was pretty small, actually), Maya and I set off for the grocery store to purchase food for two more dinners and two (astonishingly German) breakfasts.  Total cost was around 7 euros.

Then, groceries in hand (bag), we got a little snack to tide us over:

(There are fried onions hidden in the bun! Yaaay!)

Back at the hostel I got a lecture from a woman about how to do something that I know how to do and was in the process of doing.  I really hate that.  The hostel had a gas oven, and I've lit gas ovens before, and it went out after catching, so I went to do it again, and got accosted by this woman making tea next to me.  It kinda ticked me off, but this is all irrelevant.

The next day we went to Triberg (which is pronounced "treeberg", which I struggled with).  We picked it out of the handful of relatively nearby Black Forest towns because it supposedly had the world's largest cuckoo clock, which we ironically didn't see.  Everywhere you went in town, there were two signs to the cuckoo clock pointing in opposite directions, and yet nobody seemed to acknowledge that there was a problem.  They just calmly told us where "Die Kuckucksuhr" was, with both of the people we asked pointing us in opposite directions.  Yeah

We walked up to town from the train station, after a brief scare that there WAS no town.  The main street slopes up for maybe half a mile before splitting into a T at the base of the waterfall.

We did some tourist shopping:


Unlike most of the people mulling around and letting their small children run into traffic (seriously, on a blind corner, he was SO lucky), we went to the Black Forest Museum to learn things about things!  Maya was REALLY into it.  It was pretty cool.  Most of the exhibits were about handcrafts of the Schwarzwald like wood carving and hat making, and there were some about the railroad, and winter sports, and clock dealers (that was a biggie).  Dad would've liked the working antique Orchestrions:

Below: Chair with woodcarving of a kitty, an exhibit of masks/costumes from a Black Forest festival (pretty creepy!), and a chandelier being held up by a wooden hand.


The museum looked pretty small, but it extended underground and had like fifteen rooms, including a "mineshaft" full side replica that you could go inside.

After the museum, we went looking for the Bergsee, which we kinda both thought the other one of us had heard good things about.  The hike is a pain in the ass, and the "lake" is about the size of my Aunt Jane's faux pond.  But I took a photo that makes it seem bigger:

We told no one of our defeat, and headed back down the main street a little to try another Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte, because as all scientists know, a large sampling gives the most accurate results.  Maya was still a little gun shy from the last torte, so she ordered a slice of strawberry cheesecake and I got the torte and we traded bites.  This torte was indeed better.  It still had kirschwasser, but MUCH less, and only in the cake and not the whipped cream, and I discovered that if you eat a cherry in the same bite with the kirschwassery cake, you can't taste the [rubbing] alcohol.  So that was a success.

I do not remember exactly if this happened before or after the torte eating, but it's essentially irrelevant.  We saw a parade:

Which we followed around behind the town hall and down a street to where the Triberg Stadtfest was going on.  So we got another classic German cheap lunch of wurst - Currywurst this time.  I can only eat so much of that stuff, but I hadn't had it in a long time.

Upon exploring the Stadtfest more thoroughly, we discovered that to get to the other side of the fest, we had to go through this fake bunker/tent setup surrounded by Bundeswehr (army) guys.  They even had that camo netting hanging over the whole shebang.  It was a little offputting, but we went through, and they had lined the tent with beer hall tables, one on each side, and were displaying weapons next to sheets of information about them.  Oh, and they were doing facepainting on little kids, but they were doing it with those green/black army compacts you always see in Vietnam movies.  I think this freaked out Maya further, but I just went "OH MY GAWD, A PANZER FAUST!  MY BROTHER WOULD BE SO JEALOUS!"  I think the guy chaperoning the guns heard me, because he gave me a look when we walked back through.  Whatever, Greg would've been totally jealous.

We eventually dragged our butts back to the waterfall.  We chose a path from the pamphlet and followed it, perpetually getting stuck behind slow walkers.  Until, of course, we passed the point from which I took this photo:

After that, everyone else just walked back down to the entrance, and Maya and I bushwhacked a little further, which was quite nice.  I need to hike more.  Mmm, trail mix.

What you will notice about that last photo (besides that it reflected the flash and was poorly photoshopped) is that despite 180 degrees of destruction around the Münster (cathedral), the church itself is untouched.  This has not gone unnoticed by the people of Freiburg.  (Also, Wikipedia tells me that Freiburg, like Schaffhausen, has a remarkably unlucky bombing history: GERMAN bombers accidently dropped 60 bombs there in 1940.  (Schaffhausen was the only Swiss city bombed))

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On to feelings!

As Maya and I had breakfast in the hostel kitchen the day we left, we mused aloud about all of the ways that we'd become "Germanized" without even noticing.

• We went to the grocery store to "buy breakfast" and ended up walking out with cold cuts, cheese, rolls, and orange juice, knowing that there was tea, butter and jam already at the hostel.  The classic German breakfast, without any discussion toward that goal.
• I drink Apfelschorle (a mixture of half carbonated mineral water and half apple juice) all the time, despite never having liked carbonated beverages.
• I can distinguish one type and brand of beer from another.  I once did it by smell.
• I can go on about beer styles at length, and have.
• I can hike/climb hills to tourist attractions faster than most Americans.
• When I think about getting a quick, cheap snack, I think of either wurst or döner.  Mostly wurst.
• When counting on my fingers, I start with the thumb.
• I get uncomfortable when Americans talk about Hitler loudly in public.
• I look forward to having a nice beer with lunch next year (eep!)

BUT I cannot get the hang of the y and z being inverted on German keyboards.