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.


28
Aug 11

Muhlen-Tour (Water Mill-tour), Simonswald

It was a beautiful, sunny Sunday. We were armed with our wee book of hikes to take in the Süd-Schwarzwald (South of the Black Forest), and the destination for the day was a valley called Simonswald. It’s not far from Freiburg, about 25km to the North East. The trail that Gina picked for us was a circular walk up the valley, high above the town of Simonswald, that followed a gentle river, and dotted along the river were these water mills, which were used to grind wheat and such. They were very pretty wee mills, especially the higher up the valley we went.

Me and the FIrst Mill

Gina and the FIrst Mill

We arrived around noon, to a very busy, jam-packed Simonswald. At the center of the village green, was a competition of manliness;  Tug of war. The village was booming with supporters, as there seemed to be a lot of teams that had come far and wide. We chilled a bit watching the wars, but decided to push on, to find the trail head.

Mill figures

Tug 'o War

We eventually found the start of the trail, and made our way up the valley. The whole valley were dotted with apple trees, which had some brilliantly red apples on them, whenever we got the chance, we grabbed a few to enjoy on our journey, they were very very tasty. On the lower part of the valley, there was some pretty epic houses and gardens, which Gina liked, as she’s a full grown gardener now.

Apple tree

Nice garden

The sun was blasting on this glorious Sunday, and we were making our way to the top of the valley. The signs of Autumn were getting apparent, as Gina spotted a few red leaves here and there. We passed another water mill, but this one was located in a farmers field, so we decided not to visit it. Just before turning off the road that led up the Valley, we came across a really nice chapel sitting high, overlooking the valley below.

Autumn leaves

Chapel overlooking Simonswald

From the chapel, we turned into the forest itself. We were treated to fresh Brombeeren (blackberries) and we happily picked and ate as we ventured ahead. After resting in a top-class hütte, we came a a very nice open view of the whole Simonswald valley, where I managed to take this panorama:

Simonswald Panorama

We chilled here for a little while (on the wee bench on the left) to enjoy the view and the sun. From here, everything was a gentle downhill walk back towards the village.

Us

We came to the most glorious mill on the whole circuit. Our wee book even has this mill listed as ‘Top Tip’ – which means, be sure to check this place out. The mill, now it seems, is a walk-in museum of what the mill used to be like back in the day when it was used. Located on the upper floor was the grinder in which they used to grind down the wheat, and on the lower floor was some information about the mill, with some newspaper clippings, as I believe it’s just been newly renovated. It’s called Wehrlehof-muhle, and was built in 1879. As the brook that feeds the water wheel (used to grind the wheat) hasn’t got that much water in it, they’ve built, out of a 10m hollow tree, a shoot to connect the water to the mill, so they made sure it got some water! The outside of the mill looked very nice:

Gina & the Wehrlehof-muhle

Inside the Wehrlehof-muhle

Then from here, we made our way back into the village. The route was right through the forest, where there were a couple of tiny little mills – to which I have no idea what the were used for. We then came out of the forest, and along the road – over the river, which had plenty of fish chilling lazily in it, through an epic apple orchard, to the center of the village where the tug of war was coming to an end. As the activities had drawn in the whole village, beer & food tents were set up, so we decided to grab something small to eat, and Gina had a quick beer!

Small unknown mill

Beer & pommes frites

A very nice, gentle Sunday afternoon stroll.


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!