If you have been following our Road Trip to Germany so far you will know that we ate chocolate and waffles in Brussels and Wurst in Frankfurt so of course we needed to visit the Black Forest – for Gateau!
One of the reasons we went to visit the Black Forest was to visit a waterfall. My husband knows how I love nature and as it was a Bank Holiday (31st May) I would worry that places would be too crowded. But out in nature people tend to spread out and that feeling of being enclosed isn’t there so much. We headed to Triberg im Schwarzwald. The Triberg waterfalls are some of the highest in Germany.
Now let’s talk about the journey. You may think that Germany is famous for famous speeds and no limits but this is not strictly true at all. Yes my husband had enjoyed some limit free driving on the autobahn (although he found other drivers getting in the way just as he got to almost a new record a bit frustrating!). No, indeed they have speed limits (and not ones a lot of people abide by). They can come on quite quickly and change down suddenly – as well as the obvious in-town, out-of-town and motorway changes. I was aware of this, I was. But I thought my first stint of driving would just be on the autobahn so it would be quite straight forward. I have driven in France before so am no stranger to driving on the other side of the road. What my husband was finding in Germany was that people (who do not want to do the speed limit) come up really close behind you – especially those who aren’t allowed to move into the other lane. Well as you can imagine from this build up I got my first ever speeding ticket; in Germany of all places!!! Basically I was overtaking and as I went to pull in the car in front slammed on their brakes. I moved back out but the lanes merged and then the speed limit changed (reduced by 20km) because we were going through a tunnel. My husband was talking to me about putting my lights on and it was all too much and I had missed the new speed signs. Turns out I was 6km over the speed limit – and received a 10 euro fine in the post. Not bad we were expecting worse, but it cost more than 10 euros in charges etc to pay it.
Anyway back to Triberg. The teen managed to translate and talk to some people who confirmed that it was free parking because of the Bank Holiday – which was a lovely bonus. I do get anxious about time constraints, never mind having the extra cash. We headed for the waterfall and discovered that we had to pay. It wasn’t too much and it did cover a miniature village down the road. Although the waterfall was lovely to see it was disappointing to see only a bit of it, so many bridges and paths in the way and no opportunity to so much as touch it, never mind get in and play. Was lovely to see the boys so interested though, especially that the teen was taking so many pictures.
Triberg is also home of the biggest Cuckoo clock in the World – we didn’t actually stop and watch it come out as we were so desperate for lunch and it was when another very hot day suddenly had a thunder storm. This time we were luckily under shelter awaiting our food. The smoking in Germany here was the worst the boys had had it with people smoking at tables around them – we were so super impressed that none of our boys commenting on it. This time the teen went with chicken and chips and his was brought up separately to the rest (we all had spaghetti bolognaise). Then we all had enormous slices of Black Forest Gateau. We were unsure if we were meant to tip or not as a quick Google shows up a variety of responses: I guess the main thing is you don’t have to, but neither do you in the UK. In the end we decided that we would, because it was good service and great food. Instead of 10% though we rounded it up to a higher note so not to wait for change (as per suggestion on one post).
We went to look around the miniature village – which was very good. On the way back there was some kind of accident which closed off important roads. It really did make a lot of traffic – eventually we had to ignore the satnav (which didn’t know the road was closed) and tell it to avoid motorways to get back to the camp. This meant it was rather late when we got back but such beautiful views.
With such an early start to the final day of our holiday (that wasn’t just travelling that is) we all went to bed.