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25
Dec 11

Schauinsland on christmas day

After unwrapping our beautiful presents in the morning (we must have been good last year, especially Iestyn), and having lots of christmas cookies and other sweets, we decided to go for a short walk up Schauinsland, to make space in our bellies for the epic christmas dinner. We could not really have gone for a longer walk, as epic christmas dinners take a long time to make (even though we already prepared lots of stuff the day before).

Looking back to F'burg

Schauninsland was full of snow, and had a strange lid of grey clouds hanging over the whole of the sky, except at the end over the horizon, where the sky ran out of clouds and showed some Alp peaks in the sun. We went up the tower, and both of us made it all the way to the top, which was great. Iestyn made pictures, while I was playing with the tiny icicles made by snow and wind.

Gina

Iestyn

View

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20
Dec 11

Christmas Cookies!!

The first Christmas we spent together was back in 2009. Gina flew over from Praha to Wales to spend some time with me, and to my delight, bought with her something that was totally new to me; Czech Christmas cookies!! She didn’t just bring a handful, oh no – she bought with her a box full, about 2kg. They were epically delicious. From then, I’ve always wanted more, and due to us not being able to spend last Christmas together, Gina made some more epic Cookies!

In preparation, Gina created the dough over in Prague when she headed there for a couple of days, but the epic task wasn’t over, as we had a very productive day, watching National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, and baking to the max!

A very busy Gina

Heart Shaped Cookies

Gina went ahead and started cutting the dough with our newly bought cookie cutters, into various shapes, such as hearts, half moons, bear paws, christmas tree, shooting star (comet), rounded ones, and some with holes in the middle. We had a pretty good system going, with Gina doing pretty much all the work, and me chilling :) That is, until the epic task of filling in the holed cookies with Gina’s mum’s homemade Jam.

Iest being busy

Heart Shells

Then, while Gina took a wee break, I was left in charge – only temporarily, to cut up the dough into nice wee heart shapes. Gina got busy, snapping away. Once the cookies were ready, they were sent away into the over to be baked, and when finished, laid out by the window to cool, and to fill the apartment with their beautiful smell.

Baked Hearts

Hazelnut Moons

Cocnut Christmas Shapes

Chocolate Dipped!

Then, sadly, the cookies were taken away, and stored in our nice cookie boxes until they were ready to eat – which was about two weeks later. When they were brought out, we could munch on as many as we wanted – although, I was banned from opening the boxes, as Gina knew damn well, that I’d eat them all. They were delicious, and I’m already looking forward to next years batch!!

Chocolate cooling production line

Cookies and our Tree

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27
Nov 11

St. Peter, St. Märgen

First advent Sunday, sunny but cold with fierce wind – we decided to go for a mellow trip. There are two monasteries near Freiburg, in beautiful locations in the midst of Black Forest hills. We first visited Sankt Peter, which was pretty but the service was in full blow (and no, we did not think of it ahead), so we could not really admire the insides, and the historical library was closed already. Outside there was not much to do (did I mention the awful biting wind?).

St Peter

Between St Peter and St Margen

So soon enough we were on our way to Sankt Märgen. They had a christmas market going on, on which I got a pretty little heart-shaped decoration for our wall. We also checked the surroundings and the horse, and called it quits (I mentioned the arctic wind, right?)

Sankt Märgen

Sankt Märgen

Sankt Märgen

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29
Oct 11

Wutachschlucht

As Gina has been away for a couple of weeks in Sarajevo, Bosnia with work, we hadn’t been anywhere for a bit. I went with a friend to stay for the night at the Wutachschlucht, and when Gina got back, I showed her the photos I took from our trip, which was a very nice trip – but very misty and steamy weather.  Gina thought it would be fantastic idea (well, in reality I said something along the lines of ‘let’s go somewhere or whatevs’) to head on down there again, as it was a glorious sunny day – she was right (as usual). The valley in the sun was a whole different place, really nice.

Wutachschlucht is a narrow gorge, with about three different sections. It’s believed to be the youngest valley in the whole of Europe, which formed about 10,000 years ago when the Ice retreated. It’s a beautiful place, full of wildlife and vegetation. The route we took was roughly 14km long, that starts from the village of Bonndorf and ends close to Wutach – where we were to catch the tourist bus back to Claude…

We headed out early, and missed the morning traffic. Driving up the Hollental Valley out of Freiburg is always a pleasant experience, but in the Autumn, the whole Valley shines in epic Autumn colors – something I’ve always wanted to see here in the Black Forest.

Arriving in Bonndorf, we left Claude at the car park, and headed North towards the valley. Gina was armed with my camera, and happily merrily took some photos of the Autumn scenes all around.

Autumn Berries

Autumn Leaves

Autumn Colours

We headed down into the gorge, and began following the stream steadily downhill. It’s a great big deep valley, which gets deeper really quickly, and without knowing it, you get dwarfed by the 100 year old trees that surrounds the gentle stream. There are some nice bridges that cross the river frequently, which makes the trek very ‘tourist friendly’ – which it certainly was on this sunny Autumn day.

Gina on the bridge

Gina in the stream

As we continued happily down the stream, the gorge opens up, and the stream joins a huge river, and  you start to see all around. Today, from what I can gather, was Gina’s day of experimenting on new techniques with the camera that she’s recently learned from somewhere. One of the techniques she liked today was what she called ‘Fast Zooms’ :) (never called it that once. I call it ‘motion pictures’)The results are posted below (truth said, a little bit too much motion in the second one. But the first one came out right.):

Gina on the river

Gina Smiles

Gina's "Fast Zoom" Experiments

After walking along the wide river peacefully, the path takes a pretty great gain in height, and without knowing it, you suddenly become very high. One particular place, roughly just under half way, offers an amazing view of the river and valley, which I took the opportunity to take a panorama:

Panorama View

As you can see, the Autumn colors really make the place look amazing. As we continued further, the terrain changes again, this time, the river flows along, and carves into these great big Limestone cliffs. The cliffs themselves looks so strange, as you can clearly see the layers of rock so clearly.

Iestyn Canyon

Gina Canyon

And this is pretty much the end of the tour of the Valley. From here, it was a gentle walk though some trees, and over a few bridges, and along the river. As the tour was winding down, still on her Experimenting high, Gina also took the opportunity to create some lovely macro shots of the vegetation (oi! i’ve had macro under my belt practically before you were born – this was no experimenting! just doing what I do best.).

Gina's Macro Experiment

We came out the other end, just by the bus stop where the bus would take us back to Bonndorf, and to Claude. But, with a bit of detective work on the timetable, we figured out that the last bus had indeed left about an hour earlier, so we were faced with an interesting situation – how do we get back to Claude, that was sitting lonely 14km away? To think about it, we headed to the hut at the side of the road to have a delicious, well earned coffee and cake:

Eating Plum Cake

Gina Eating Cake

After filling our bellies, we’d decided that we couldn’t call a taxi to come and pick us up – so the only other option was to try our hand at thumbing. So, we headed back to the bus stop, and using my best thumbing moves, we managed to pull the third car over – which was also heading to Bonndorf – result! Our driver was originally from Bonndorf, so he knows the situation with the bus very well, and because we looked like a cool pair of hikers, he decided to pick us up. He took us all the way to Claude – which was fantastic, as we both really didn’t fancy walking back.

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02
Oct 11

Hochfirst

We wanted to get up real early and go for a long hike but of course that idea didn’t go down so well with people who wanted to have a ‘proper Sunday lie-in’ cause they never get to sleep in, so there we were, stuck in a traffic jam quarter to noon on the road to the Höllental valley. Oh well, it cleared up quickly, and the drive through the valley was pretty as ever.

We arrived in Saig, and despite Henry trying hard, we couldn’t find parking in the village. Eventually, we just left Claude in a little clearance by the forest behind the village, hoping noone would tow him away. But the village seemed pretty sleepy and quiet, so we didn’t really think anyone would bother. Of course, once we started walking, we found the parking place in Saig all ready.

Saig is a very small and traditional schwarzwald village, couldn’t be more stereotypical if it tried.

Saig church

Saig pointers

From Saig we took the steep hill up to Hochfirst. From there we had a beautiful view down on the Titisee area.

Hochfirst view

But that was not enough for us, we decided to go up the watchtower as well! The watchtower looked like a mobile transmitter or something like that but had a nice double winding staircase inside, and a platform up on top with legend for identifying mountains and hills around. Unfortunately, the horizon was quite hazy, so we could not see the Alps. We did have a nice chat with a German dude, who started talking about the tower falling over as soon as he heard from Iest that he does not enjoy heights.

Iest by the tower

Hochfirst tower

Gina Tower

When we had enough of disaster scenarios we decided to go on with our trail, which led us along the Beerwaldhauptweg. This was all through the forest, which Iest found nice, since they don’t have forests where he comes from, I found it a bit boring, although quite bearably. We also found one nice hut with an autumn view and forgotten digital camera on the inside (curiously, with some antipodean pictures on it), we left it there.

Beerwaldhauptweg

Autumny hut

We were looking forward to seeing the Francosenkreutz commemorating the fallen in a battle between the French and the Austrians in the aftermath of the French Revolution in 1799, but we were kind of disappointed.

Franzosenkreuz

However, the village Kappel was really nice with beautiful old farmhouses and spunky cows.

Kappel chapel

Kappel

Kappel cow

We were happy to find Claude where we left him, waiting for us all good. And we headed home after a nice little walk, looking forward to our yum cake, also waiting where we left him.

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17
Sep 11

Triberg

The morning was quite sunny and fresh, but the forecast for today was really bad, so we didn’t want to go for a long trip, just something quick and painless. Iest suggested we could go see Villingen (not Schweninngen!), so I found this small walk in our book around Triberg, see the waterfalls and all. Of course, it was marked “blue”, so we braced ourselves for a loser-trail, which it of course was.

What we did not expect, was that apart from our little path being a loser-trail, Triberg also turned out to be a major tourist destination in the area. The kind that parking in the town costs 60 cents for 20 minutes, and menus in eateries have English translations. This all seems to be due to the fact that the Triberg waterfalls are very well known and frequently visited, and claim to be the highest waterfalls in Germany – 163 m in descent. Which, according to Wikipedia, is actually a false claim.

Since we were already there, we decided to just go for it, and have it done with. On the little pathway to the waterfalls, we saw an old guy in traditional costume pretending to play some kind of traditional music instrument, of course only when there was a group of tourists passing by. The dude playing pipes in Glen Coe in Scotland immediately came to our minds – and he still is the best in this trade we’ve seen hands down, world class. This dude was more like a local league in the whole dress-up-and-play-out-of-tune-for-the-Japanese-and-Yanks business.

Zum Schwimmbad

Musician

For the waterfalls you actually have to pay an entrance fee to see, bloody SOBs. Anyway, we did pay, and went to see the marvel, as our trail branched off of this little path around the water. The waterfalls are actually quite nice, and the forest around them is one of the few pieces of the Black Forest that is actually natural and not cultivated, and it feels very good. Of course we took some obligatory pictures of us there (and no, you didn’t have to pay for pictures extra), and also this picture of a guy, who had a really old-school Deuter backpack, like twenty generations before my Deuter backpack, really cool!

Iest Triberg

Gina Tribeg

Deuter double

From the waterfalls we followed the trail around the small Bergsee (lake), crossed the valley to the other side, and found the Hindenburg memorial. It is a memorial to the second German president Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg (yes, his name does remind one of this). We got some nice views of the town from up top, and that was about it for the trip.

Triberg _from_Hindenburg

Iest all the way up

Gina_at_Hindenburg

From there we walked back down to town, actually having to walk through the centre this time, and thus exposing ourselves to the hideousness of  such kitsch gems as the “House of 1000 clocks” – the bear on the rope was actually climbing up and down. Ugh. We were happy to get out of there fast.

1000 clocks

By this point, we were pretty steamy, as no rain has come yet, and it was very hot. Nevertheless, we still went to Villingen, if only to get something to eat, because we certainly did not want to do that (or anything else for that matter) in Triberg. We remain divided in opinion of Villingen – Iest thinks the main street is prettier than the one in Freiburg, I say no way. Not in a million years. But! they do have a beautiful fountain, and that thing actually made the highlight of the whole day for me. The local tourism website has this to say about it:

Built in 1989, the church fountain is a masterpiece by Black Forest artist Klaus Ringwald featuring famous personalities from recent history. It illustrates the 1000-year history of the town. Each of the 8 sides of this work of art is different. They are dedicated to the eras of history of significance to the town.

I just think it is beautiful, and would have taken a million cool pictures of it, if someone didn’t forget to charge his battery camera before our trip.

Villingen Church

Villingen fountain

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10
Sep 11

Hinterwaldkopf

Glorious sunshine in the morning, so we decided for a trip with sky-high altitude for spectacular views. We also asked our friend Hendrik, who joined us for the hike for some added fun.

We left Claude in Himmelreich village by the train station, put lots of sunscreen on, and wandered off into the jungly thick greenery of the Black Forest. Soon the trail was pretty steep, and we were happy to be in the shade of the forest, as the sun was doing its job pretty heavily.

Himmelreich greenery

Himelreich forest

Himelreich forest

Finally we emerged from the forest, and found ourselves near the Höfener Hütte with a beautiful view across the valley.

Panorama

What a place for a beer! Well, in reality we got ourselves Apfelsaftschorle, all organic and bio and from apples of the region, sweet and tasty. Also a cheesecake, which was yum!

Hofener Hutte

From the hut it was still a little bit to go to the very top of Hinterwaldkopf. Since it was a sunny Sunday, and we had a late start as always, not to mention the recharging stop at the hut, the top was pretty crowded, complete with a bunch of screaming kids and all that. So we tried to enjoy the views for a little bit but didn’t spend too long, and set out on our way down, on the other side of the hill.

Hinterwaldkopf

Hinterwaldkopf

Before we immersed ourselves into the forest on the other side again, we got a good close look at some endemic fauna and flora in the sun.

Fauna

Flora

By the time we got out of the woods down in Hinterzarten, we were pretty tired from the long and steep downhill. We managed to see some very nice waterfalls and hug some trees for energy, but the most energy we eventually got was from the ice-cream in Hiterzarten. This made us miss the train back to Himmelreich by just a minute (we saw it!) because some people (me) cannot eat their ice-cream as fast as other people (Iestyn and Hendrik for example). But it was ok, because the train goes every half hour.

Wasserfall

Gina hug

Hinterzarten station

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20
Aug 11

Tajikistan

It needs to be said that Gina went gallivanting to Tajikistan. However, since she didn’t go with Iest, she is not allowed to post her travel log here on our blog (yes, the rules are very strict here). So she had to write all about it on her own blog.

Gina in Tajikistan

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30
Jul 11

A wedding in the Czech Republic

Over the weekend, we headed over to the Czech Republic for a beautiful Czech wedding. Gina’s best friends Jani and Milan were getting married and we were both invited! (Although I was nearly un-invited due to some Facebook comments gone awry).

We left Freiburg late on Friday evening, with an epic 6 hour, 650 km drive ahead of us to Prague to stay the night. The driving went really well, with no troubles, with Henry the Navigator working well, and Claude the Auto doing awesomely. We arrived into Prague just before 1am, and headed straight to bed, as we had some more travelling to do in the morning, as the wedding was in a town, located the other end of the Czech Republic called Znojmo, a good few hours trek from Prague, through woodland, and extremely sleepy Czech villages.

We departed 9am sharp, and our destination was TvoÅ™ihráz, located at the foot of the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands, where the groom, Milan is originally from. We arrived to a very happy Father-of-the-Groom directing us where to park. We parked Claude, and said “Ahoj” to everyone.

Gina Present

Flowers on the Car

To my surprise, there was a traditional Czech Moravian (! Iest wouldn’t know the difference) band playing some awesome music. It was really fun. The wedding was in three parts. The reception came first, this was located here in TvoÅ™ihráz – just behind Milan’s parent’s house, where we were fed with a nice buffet, drinks, and sweet Czech Moravian music. I managed to get the band to pose for me, whilst in the middle of playing a song:

The Band!

Me & Band

After filling our bellies full of goodness, we all caught the bus for about 15 km South to the Town of Znojmo. Here on the trip, I got my first encounter to the Czech locals, and their drinking songs. Everyone, including Gina, were happily merrily sining in Czech as we twiddled over the hills towards Znojmo.

Bride & Groom

Jani & Milan

We arrived at a brewery. This, I thought was epic. I knew the Czech were renowned for their ability to drink, but to have a wedding in a brewery – I thought this was incredible! I was, however, wrong. Located just behind the brewery, was this wee Registry Office, where the ceremony would be taking place – but as we arrived, there was another ceremony in session, this resulted in everyone going to the view point just behind it, over looking the Thaya Dyje River, and the Dam. The valley was beautiful, really pretty views to be had. Jani & Milan was taken away by the photographer of the day for some snaps. Compared to a Welsh wedding, the bride and groom were happily allowed to see each other before the marriage – which I thought was pretty cool!

Gina chilling all pretty

Chapel

We headed inside after the previous ceremony had finished, where the service lasted about 15mins. Again, a massive contrast to a Welsh service. It was all in Czech, so I didn’t catch a word of it. It consisted of some poem readings, and the drunken dude (Uncle maybe?) being funny, and happily drinking a full bottle of wine at the service (picture below).

The Service

The Service

After the ceremony, we all went ahead and took our time to congratulate the new Husband and Wife, individually, by going up to the front of the Service room, and shaking hands, and kissing. This then, followed by something new to me – throwing rice at the Bridge and Groom as they exited the Service Hall:

Throwing of the Rice

The Legend

From the service, we headed back out for some more Wedding photography, this time: group photos. The bus then took us to our final destination – somewhere up North of TvoÅ™ihráz (the place we first arrived to) – but the name of the place has escaped me Horni Dunajovice. Here we were going to be fed, and entertained for the evening. A more Merrily bus twiddled up and over the hills, with a LOT of drunken singing and cheering. We arrived safely at around 4pm.

Eating Hall

We sat with Gina’s Volleyball friends, and I was able to communicate a wee bit with her friends, as they spoke a little bit of English. The food and Beer came out. For starters we had traditional soup. Then came the main meal – and boy it was yum! I had Beef and Dumplings in some good sauce, and Gina had some fried vegetables. I’m a huge fan of the Christmas Cookies that Gina has made over the last couple of Christmas we’ve been together – they are epic – and to my surprise, it’s a traditional thing to bake a massive batch of similar cookies for dessert too!! I was over the moon! Good times. (I hope Gina doesn’t mind me posting a pic of the food here).

Beef and Dumplings

Cookies!!

The stage was set, with a full on live band, and the first dance was ordered. Milan and Jani hit the floor, for a few twirls, then the whole party got up to join them, resulting in throwing the Bride and Groom in the air! The band was pretty good, they played a lot of old Czech songs, and some popular pop songs. Milan’s dad had some seriously epic moves – air guitar and air duck walk!!! Really impressive.

Dancing

Dancing

And that was it for us. The band carried on playing through the evening, but as we had to travel back to Prague that evening. We decided to leave at around 7pm. The drive back was pretty epic, unfortunately for Regi, as we had all sorts of bad weather against us, but Regi did awesome job driving, and took us home safely.

Jani, Monika, Gina & Milan

We arrived safely in Prague just after midnight, and went straight to bed. We had another early start in the morning, as I had to drop off Regi at the airport, as she’s off for a few weeks traveling to the mountains of Tajikistan with a friend – on a well earned, and deserved break. I then, had the epic task of driving all the way back to Freiburg, by myself. To my astonishment, I noticed that the highways, were completely empty of Trucks! It’s a rule here, that on a Sunday, no trucks are allowed on the Highways. This made the journey much easier, and safer.

But, one thing that made the journey even better. I got to have some of my favorite Czech sweets. Kofola and Tatranky! They are both super awesome, such a shame no where else sells them, but it makes getting them from them even more fantastic!

Kofola & Tatranky

It was a great weekend, I really enjoyed myself, and it was a good trip, seeing the back and beyond of the Czech Republic, places that I’d never ever see if I was a tourist there.

Thanks to Jani a Milan for the lovely day!

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05
Jul 11

Süd Schwarzwald – (South Black Forest) Trips!

One evening, Gina bought home a couple of books about the Black Forest. One’s full of day trips that we can do with Claude the Auto, and the other if full of hikes in and around the Hills of the Black Forest:

Our Black Forest Books

Saturday: So, over the weekend, as the weather was beautiful, we decided to combine both books, by taking a nice drive up the valley, then depart on a short walk. The drive took us up the beautiful valley of  Höllental (Hell’s Valley) – one of the most impressive valleys in the Black Forest. The valley is rich in history and legends, which our book proudly describes to us, and was beautifully narrated by Gina as we drove along. Our first stop was by the ‘Hirschsprung’ (“Deer’s Jump”) – the narrowest  part of the valley, and was originally only 9 metres wide. Thus a common tale is existing about a red deer jumping across the 9m wide valley to escape from hunters, and in commemorative to these fine red deers, they’ve erected a lovely statue on the (now wider) part of the pass.

Deer Statue

Gina & Claude

After some serious hairpin turns, and an almost full 360 degree corner around a pointed cliff peak in the middle of the road, we arrived at the top of the valley, which we were rewarded with some fine views of the Höllental.

Iestyn & Höllental

Gina &Höllental

We continued East for a few more Kilometers, until we reached a nice lake called Titisee. Here was our walk for the day – a 7km gentle round circuit of the lake. It was indeed a really easy trail, as people from all strokes of life wandered around the lake with us. I enjoyed the leisurely stroll, but we now know, that the blue coloured  routes on our walking book is indeed aimed for old people :)

Titisee

After filling our bellies, we decided to take another route home, and do a circular trip with Claude. We headed West towards the village of Todtnau (where we went to before), and then up the Todtnauberg Valley, where Germany’s highest natural waterfall crashes at 97m high, the “Todtnauer Wasserfall”. It’s a pretty area, where you can climb up above the falls, dip your feet into the water, and look down the valley. Located above the waterfall, there is a bridge, that you can cross the falls, and go hiking up and around the woods.

Gina on the Bridge

Gina Chilling

The Todtnauer Waterfall

And from there, we headed home to Freiburg.

Sunday: Late on Sunday evening, we decided to go for another trip, this time exploring the North. Our destinations were the village of Waldkirch, and the peak of Kandel. Waldkirch looked like a very sleepy village, and is quite famous for creating the musical Organs. Here also, there is a castle – the ruins of Kastelburg. We headed up the ‘Knight Trail’ and was awarded with a beautiful view over the whole village, and the pretty Kandel sitting high above.

A Knight on the Knight Trail

Waldkirch & Kandel

The castle is a fine castle. Built right ontop of a rock. There were stairs going right up to the top, but, as I can’t stand man made heights, I found it very hard to go up two levels. Gina on the other hand, made it all the way to the top without any trouble, and manage to take a few pretty pictures of the view (like the one of the village above).

Gina & Kastelburg Castle

Looking down from the top

After pottering about a wee bit, we set our eyes on the peak of Kandel. Claude the Auto took us all the way to the top, just over 1200m high. We had spectacular views of the Black Forest from the summit, but it was a shame the haze of summer was closing in, and we couldn’t see beyond the Forest, it’s said that on a fine day, you can see as far as the Vosges, and even the Swabian Alb. There’s some pretty epic legends about this hill. In earlier time, the Hill was known as ‘The Witches Mountain of the Black Forest’ – and to this day, the cliff is called ‘Teufelskanzel’, which translates to ‘Devil’s Pulpit’.

Kandel Summit View

Gina locating Claude

And that concludes our epic first trips around the Black Forest. There will be plenty more to come in the future!

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