The Schwarzwald

I started writing this post awhile ago, but am now finally finishing it so that is why it is back-dated. Our house has been so crazy lately with little things that pop up, trying to change Josef to a new school and soccer. So now on to this post....

Aaron had a long weekend over Columbus Day so we decided to take an excursion down to the Black Forest. It is such a beautiful part of Germany with the rolling hills, quaint villages and dark forests. Even though it rained for the half time and the kids had problems with wetting the bed, diahrea and throwing up, we had a good time and enjoyed beautiful scenery.

I booked a hotel through the travel agency on post so I wasn't quite sure what it would be like. The agent was up in arms about how difficult it is to find a hotel for 5 people! She ended up finding us a hotel in a town called Bad Herrenalb. It turned out to be better than we expected! We had kind of our own little apartment.

The first city we went to in the Schwarzwald is Triberg. If you would like a cuckoo clock, a grandfather clock or any other unique kind of clock this is the city to go. The first Black Forest cuckoo clocks were created between 1740 and 1750. The tallest waterfalls in Germany are located here too, but because it rained that day and it is a hike to get there we didn't go see them. Like I said, Triberg is the city of clocks and you see huge clocks everywhere. Here are a few of them.

This is the world's largest cuckoo clock.

There are so many different styles of clocks to choose from nowadays. When we were here 5+ years ago we saw mostly the hand-carved wood clocks, but now they have updated the clocks with the times I guess. I want to share a few of the interesting ones.

By far the most popular clocks are the traditional hand-carved wood clocks.

But now they have children's clocks too. They are very colorful and made of plastic. Instead of a cuckoo bird coming out each clock has a different animal that comes out on the hour. We saw one with an elephant and one had a cow as well as others.

If your tastes are more modern you can buy a cuckoo clock in that style too! Somehow to me these designs are just not something I think of when I think of a cuckoo clock.

We saw these carved grandfather clocks in a store and I thought they were very original and pretty.

Despite the rain we had a pretty good day tooling around Triberg. Of course I could not leave without adding another cuckoo clock to our collection at home. I never tire of hearing the cuckoo bird come out and sing to me every hour.

More to come of our adventure in the Schwarzwald !