Germany 3: An amphitheater, then onto Gengenbach and the Black Forest. A three day report.

This is a three day update post.  Two days ago, we crossed the river in Heidelberg, and hiked fifty minutes up a mountain.  It began with a windy path bordered on both sides by a stone wall.



Eventually it opened up into a forest.  At the top, we found a large outdoor amphitheater.  As I just learned, apparently this amphitheater was built by the Third Reich in 1935, and on its commemoration, the propaganda minister of Nazi Germany described the theater as "national socialism in stone."



It was later used for theater, jazz music by American occupiers, and then other celebrations since.  Just behind the theater was the remains of a monastery.



We backtracked down the road and continued in the other direction, toward Heidelberg's Philosopher's Walk.  We stopped by two towers along the way.  The walk itself had a small garden and had some more views of the town.



Once in town we stopped at a local camera store and I ended up buying a polarizing lens, in an attempt to end hazy zoomed in pictures in the future.  We had lunch at a curry joint right next to the camera shop.  We walked back to our hotel along the lengthy carless main street of the town. 



We picked up groceries at a supermarket along the main street.  We found something that would have been of interest to Miles there.



We arrived back at the hotel in the early afternoon and relaxed for the rest of the night.  I read the second half of the ebook "The Last Year."  It had a great premise but ended up being average at best.  It was the first book I've ever finished on the kindle.

The next morning we checked out of our hotel and drove a little over an hour and a half to Gengenbach, in the Black Forest.  We parked our car at our bed and breakfast, and went to explore the small town.



We tried to find lunch, but at just after 2:00 every restaurant was shut down.  We stopped at a bakery, picked up some sandwiches and pastries, and headed back to our room.  After a bit of rest, we decided to try to visit a local church that was supposed to give a nice panoramic view of town.  I put the name into google and it said that it was 40 minutes away. 

After about twenty minutes I grew suspicious and by thirty minutes I decided that it must definitely have been wrong.  We weren't going up an incline and we were too far away from town.  We decided that google's location was wrong and we turned around and went back towards town.



Back in town, we went to the tourist information office.  The church that we had wanted to go to was visible from town. 



We decided to leave near sunset to catch some good sights.  I uploaded a hike that was recommended online, that intersected the church.

We left a little past 8:00, and climbed toward the church.  On the initial incline we ran into the first sheep of the trip. 



It had started to drizzle a bit on the way up, but we were able to take pictures of town from an overhang attached to the church.



We ended up walking half of the hiking route, and by 10:00 we were back in town.



We woke up the next morning to a large breakfast spread for two, in the backyard.  The weather was perfect.



We took the 11:06 train towards the nearby town of Triberg.  Triberg is known for cuckoo clocks and a large waterfall.  Before going to the large waterfall, we decided to try a nearby smaller waterfall up the mountain to the side of town that I had seen on Google maps.  As the trend would have it, we arrived and nothing was there.  I asked a local where we could find it.  He directed be back to the town and in the opposite direction.  While writing this blog, I discovered that the location of the amphitheater on google maps is shown to be inside the monastery.  Clearly nobody in Germany is making corrections to Google maps' errors.  We will have to double check all things in the future.

Back in town, we took a look in the cuckoo clock stores.  The biggest one was the House of 1000 Clocks, which featured a large cuckoo clock on its exterior, that had an animated bear climbing a rope.



Our final destination would be the Triberg Waterfall.  We bought a one euro bag of peanuts, sold at the front office.  We took the route of the nature trail, and the smaller trail that featured squirrels, which mostly overlapped each other.  It took a little over an hour.  What was unusual was that in town there was a small festival going on.  During the whole walk we were able to hear the music of a marching band.  It was a very unusual nature walk.

There were no squirrels.  Stephanie ate the peanuts.  The waterfalls were nice enough.



We returned to Gengenbach around 5:00, and left for dinner.  We found a reasonably priced local restaurant.  It is hard to describe, but you walked in fairly deep and the restaurant was surrounded on its side by houses, and had the ceiling retracted so that it was just the sky above.

I ordered gulasch soup, with something that was translated as "flame cake."  Google translate would not translate the word with its camera, so I had to look it up separately.  I had assumed the word meant pizza, because of the toppings that went with it.  The waiter explained that flame cake was Germany's take on pizza, with a very thin crust and little sauce.  I tried it.  It was just ok.  The cheese was thicker, though everything else was thinner.  The music in the restaurant was very strange.  At first, it was multiple Michael Jackson songs, slowed down tremendously, and then sung by a woman.  This was followed by the theme song to Full House, with the same treatment.

The restaurant was mostly empty, but at a nearby table was seated a girl that spoke with an American accent.  We began talking to her and then invited her to sit at our table.  She was from Massachusetts.  We talked for a few hours and then returned to our room near 7:30.  We took a shot break, grabbed my camera, and headed back toward the church overlooking town.  The previous night had part of the sky covered in dark rain clouds, so I wanted to take a look with a clearer sky.

A festival is occurring in Gengenbach as well this weekend, so we stopped by the main marketplace area of town, snapped some pictures, and headed toward the church.  There was a stage set up, for musicians who played on and off all evening, which lasted to near 12:00.  We heard music all the way up and all the way down.  Most of it was very, very bad.  It wasn't until we arrived back in town that they started playing what we thought of as traditional German music, which was much more reasonable sounding than what they had played before, which was grossly out of tune and just plain bad.  I couldn't tell what was worse, the theme song to "Full House," or the non traditional German music.

I realized that this picture would be overexposed right after I took it.  I tried to go back to retake it, but the kid started tugging on the dog to stand up.  I loved the expression of the dog and the young girl.

Here is what we saw on the trip up and down:

Germany 2: A day trip to Neckarsteinach, with four castles

I didn't get up today until 11:40 am.  I wanted to catch up on sleep.  The weather report showed mostly low chances of rain, so we took our chances and left the room without any weather gear.

We walked to the train station and struggled with the machine.  We could not find round trip ticket options.  I asked an older man nearby, who spoke only a small amount of English.  After fiddling with the machine, he too was having little luck.  At that moment a bus pulled up, and he ran over to ask them.  The bus was going to Neckarsteinach.  Now, we would both prefered trains by far, but I didn't want to disappoint the nice old man.  We got round trip bus tickets.

A twenty minute ride later and we had been dropped off in town.  This town is known for its four castles.  Three on one side of the river, and one more on the other side.  We started with the three on the side we started on.

We caught sight of the furthest castle away as we walked up to the first one.  I apologize for the haziness.



Minutes later we were at the first castle, which was beautiful, but off limits to the public.  We were able to walk around the backside on the way to the next one.



The next one was more like a fort than a castle.  It was abandoned and free, but restored, with a staircase leading to the main body of the tower.  I begrudgingly climbed to the top.  It was a semi spiral staircase, rotating off the four corners.  It was near pitch black at times, thoguh there was a trickle of light from above.  The top had nice views, but I found the countryside view of across the river to be nicer when taken from the bottom.



We continued on towards the third castle, but google's gps led us briefly astray.  This castle was also abandoned but restoredm with free access.  The staircase up the outside was wooden, and meant to replace the castle steps, which were now gone.  I found this staircase even more hair raising than the previous.

On top was two towers that allowed you to see the sky, with a nice walkway between the two.  I was able to get a good view at the first castle from up there.



Once we were back on the main street, it began to rain.  We hid at the bus stop to plan our next move.  My new camera cannot be exposed to the rain, so I packed it away in a bag, with a rain cover.  There was a Thai food restaurant one minute walk away, so we went for lunch.  I loved the food.

With much luck, the sky cleared up and we decided to risk going toward the final castle.  It was a forty minute walk, across the bridge and then hiking up a small mountain.  There was a small walled town at the top, crowned with a castle named Burgfeste Dilsberg.  It cost two euro to enter the castle grounds.



We walked up a spiral staircase, in a narrow, but tall tower.  At the top, you walk across a small wooden bridge out unto what is left of the walls.  It is a semi circle, with railing on both sides.  I found the experience of walking the walls to be quite harrowing.  I failed to take a picture of the actual top of the tower while walking on it, and my one good picture of the surrounding area was crooked.



That being said, I did take a picture of a nice rose at the bottom, and a picture of a neighboring building while on the way up.



While researching online, reviews mentioned asking to see a tunnel and its fountain.  I asked the castle guard to see the tunnel.  I had to either lend him my ID or give him ten euros as a deposit for the tunnel key.  I gave him the ten euros, he gave me directions, and we were on our way.  We had to walk about five minutes into the forest, and we saw the tunnel gate.



The tunnel was very narrow and the ceiling dropped quite heavily about halfway in.   We had to crouch down in order to make it to the end.  At the end, there was a guard rail.  This was the well.  When we walked around the castle grounds, we had heard people talking below us.  People had obviously been in the well.



We returned the key for the euros, and took the front exit of the town, choosing to walk down a street rather than more forest paths.  Stephanie pointed out a Grinch tree.



About halfway down the path, google directed us to a small hole in the forest, as the path back to the bridge.  This path...was not well maintained.  We had to climb over some branches, and eventually it led to some huge tree trunks that blocked the path.  Luckily, by this time we were far enoguh down that we took a side path and slid the rest of the way.

We took the bus back into town, a bit further past our hotel, and towards the center of the newer part of Heidelberg, away from the castle.  We went to a local grocery store for some drinks and food.  Then, we walked the length of a beautiful spacious, old time looking road, lined with shops.  As I was holding our bag of groceries, I did not take pictures.  Perhaps I will be able to get some tomorrow.  However, I did stop to take a quick phone picture of a book shelf sitting in the middle of the street.

Germany 1: First stop- Heidelberg

We had a stopover in Washington, DC.  From there, it was an eight hour flight to Frankfurt, Germany.  When we checked our bags, I told the woman that we were going to Frankfurt, because we liked hot dogs.  She didn't get it.

The second flight was a nightmare, as we had four kids behind us.  Two directly behind, and two just behind them.  The mother was two rows behind.  The father was directly behind us and could not be a more uninvolved father if he tried.  They were between two and three years old and carried on and screeched throughout the flight. 

We arrived at Frankfurt a little past seven in the morning.  We picked up our car without issue.  The cars here are just like back home, with driver on the left side of the car and car on the right side of the road.

I chose Heidelberg because it is an older style town, not too far away from the airport.  We could rest and recuperate for a few days, do some small hikes, and then move on.  First, however, we stopped at Burg Frankenstein, a castle made famous for having the same name as the story.

It was a small set of castle ruins, but nice enough.



We dropped off our luggage and the hotel and parked our car in the nearby parking garage.  We ate at the local chinese restaurant and then returned to the hotel around 1:00.  Then, we napped for five hours. 

After getting up, we decided to hike up to the castle.  It was free to walk around. 



We walked down to the central marketplace, which had a large church.  It reminded us of Italy.  There were many restaurants in this area, many of which were set up so that people could watch the World Cup.



You can see a bridge from our hotel room, the Alte Brucke Heidelberg.  Unfortunately, the massive entryway to the bridge was completely covered in scaffolding.  We went across, walked down below the bridge, and continued walking east, where we found another bridge to recross.  We had gelato for dinner.