When we went to Belchen last week, we drove through this picturesque tiny town, nested under the Black forest hills, and guarded by a ruin of a castle in the middle of wineries. We were too wet and tired to stop there last week but decided to pay a visit to Staufen to explore its little streets, and to see what the geothermal drilling fuss is all about. (Nothing, really.) The sun was shining, and the spring is clearly here to stay. We found a nice little trail that starts going up to the castle ruin, then circles the town going through the nearby hills and a couple of viewpoints, and then gently rolls back into town on the other side. Perfect stroll for a lazy sunny day.
The castle is only ruins but you can still go up the tower to have some nice panoramic views. Which we did. We also saw a little oen bach lost running around in the vineyards and crying. Iest said it would not make it through the night, but I think it did.
From the castle we made our way into the forest, with some occasional views back through the trees. The trail to the St. Johannes chapel was all meditative, lined with signs bearing quotations from haute literature about how trees and nature will set you free and stuff (ok my German is not all that good, but I did notice the forest/tree theme connecting them all, and I even knew the one from Faust – Grau, teurer Freund, ist alle Theorie, und grün des Lebens goldner Baum), so altogether it was no wonder that the goats living by the chapel are so chilled out – they surely know the true meaning of life.
From there it was only a short walk to the Messerschmidfelsen with a lovely view, where we had a little chat with some locals, and we were on our way back down to town.
In town we checked the historical centre, which was charming, but we also found ourselves a bit hungry by then, so we thought it would be a good idea to sit somewhere in the sun and have a little grub. The flammkuchen we ordered was delicious, but when the sun went a bit down and cut our table from its warmth we had to finish quite quickly. Altogether, we found Staufen very cute and would be even nice to live there but we agreed that riding my bike for like 25 kms every morning and night to and from work might be a little bit too much.