Day 7 - May 16 - Breisach Germany

Today we woke up outside Breisach, Germany. It appears to be a small village, like a suburb type. Not sure if there's every anything to see there. We're here to see the Black Forest. 

View from our veranda

Back in 1987 on our trip from graduation up to Muchengladbach Germany to attend our exchange student's graduation, we traveled through the Black Forest. It was beautiful then and it's beautiful today. 

The drive up to this resort area was spectacular. So green. So lush. It reminded me of the PNW and a little of Ireland with all the different shades of green. 

Along the way we kept seeing fields of these white tubes. I asked our tour guide what they were and it turns out that Germany grows white asparagus. To get white asparagus you have to have it grow in the ground and get no sunlight - thus they are mounded up and covered with these white tarps. 

Janet had some white asparagus in Basel. She put some on my plate to taste and truthfully it was just meh. It's not as strong as green asparagus. Same texture and apparently you have to peel it before cooking it. That just seems like too much work. I'll stick with green. 

Anyhow, back to the Black Forest. Some of the guests on our tour asked our tour guide why the Black Forest was so famous.  I hadn't really thought of it as "famous", but she responded with a simple answer. She said the Black Forest (or Schwarzwald) was home to the cuckoo clock and is also the setting for many of the Grimm fairy tales. It's enchanted and full of fables and tales. 

Our tourist stop in the Black Forest was at Hofgut Sternen. There's a hotel there, or it was once a hotel, a cuckoo clock workshop, glass blowing, a cafeteria and an exhibition on making Black Forest Cake. I was very interested in the cuckoo clocks and the Black Forest Cake. 

This was the house that the cuckoo clock workshop and store was in. It's an active cuckoo clock! We sat and watched it chime at 11am, and then it's little dance that circled around for a minute or so. Ridiculous, but man it made me smile. 

I found myself really wanting a cuckoo clock. They were EXTREMELY expensive and I really didn't know what I'd do with a cuckoo clock. I had flashbacks to 1987 again when dad bought one without consulting mom. Oh boy the conversation that took place after that. I remember exactly where it hung in the house in Saudi and later in their house in Washington. Eventually the clock disappeared. I have no idea what Mom did with it, but I'm sure she did something involving a hammer. 

Oh Black Forest Cake....how I love thee? You don't see it much in our world here in the PNW. It's chocolate, sour cherries, kirsch, and a ton of whipped cream. 

We watched them put one together. I sat in this chair right up front. I pissed a few people behind me off because apparently I was blocking their view. I really didn't feel too bad honestly. I might have had they not been such asses with their comments. They could have nicely asked me to move, but they chose to be jerks and so I pretended to not hear their comments and I sat put. Best seat in the house. 

The cake starts with chocolate sponge cake as the first layer. On that layer you put a cherry jam type spread. On that you put sour cherries as a layer. Then a hefty layer of whipped cream (not sweetened). Top that with another chocolate cake layer. That gets covered in kirsch (cherry liquer). More whipped cream, then the top layer of chocolate cake. The whole cake is frosted in Whipped cream then. Then it's covered in chocolate shavings and sour cherries. We did not have time to get a piece of this cake, but thankfully the boat had Black Forest Cake for dessert at dinner. 

We ended up back on the boat for lunch and a quick little refresh because the afternoon we'd be spending in the Medieval City of Colman, France. 

It amazed me that we could cross the river and I'm in a different country. It sounds dumb to say that, but here in Washington it takes hours to get to a border to cross into another country (or state). 

So what's in Colmar? Well, Colmar is a town in northeastern France, obviously on the border with Germany. It's an old town that has the medieval charm of cobblestone streets that are lined with beautiful half-timbered houses - pretty traditional houses when you think of Germany. They have a gothic cathedral built in the 13th century and the city is in the Alsace Wine Route - wines produced here are almost all Rieslings and Gewurztraminers. 

Colmar has crabs

This house was called something like the house of 100 heads. You can't tell from the picture, but there are a bunch of heads on this facade. And no, I didn't stop to count them.

These half-timbered houses were so beautiful and most built in the 15th and 16th century. Many are replicas too thanks to WWII. 

Back in the 15th and 16th century the taxes you paid on your property was based on how much of it was on the ground. The guy who built this little brown house paid zero taxes since it's basically latched onto the others. The only way to access it is through a courtyard in the back. Clever. 

St. Martin Cathedral in Colmar was built between 1235 and 1365. Parts of it were destroyed by a fire and later rebuilt. WWII did it's own damage to it as well. The foundation and main tower are really all that remains from the 13th century. 

The inside of this gothic cathedral was simple. It wasn't lavish in any way. Frankly, I prefer it that way. 

We also happened to hit Stork season while in Colmar. Apparently it's good luck for a stork to build it's nest on your roof so residents put these platforms up hoping they do. The storks were home to roost and had already had their babies. We saw a few little heads pop up every now and then but mama and papa storks were keeping a close eye on us. 

Some stork nests can be as large as 9 ft across. When you think about it, they aren't small birds so they have to have the room for themselves and their babies. 

We had some free time after the walking tour. We didn't have enough time to walk down to Little Venice - which is too bad cuz I really wanted to see that. As a consolation prize, we found a gelato shop and had our daily scoop of gelato. 

On our way out of town, we spotted this Statue of Liberty in the middle of a round about. The creator of our Statue of Liberty, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, is from Colmar. So there was another made in his honor and put in this round about. 

Thus endth day 7. It was a good day. We saw a lot and we're just getting started. 

Total steps: 8601