Sunday, 21 April

Breisach & the Black Forest: The buses loaded at 8:30 from a little way along the docks. [We met our guide who was dressed in local costume as an 'available lady'].
     

There was a fairly heavy mix of rain and snow falling, but what else is new?

We headed up toward the Black Forest, passing through villages and towns along the way. The valley has lots of farms growing fruits, vegetables and grain, and a thriving wine industry. As you get into the higher, steeper areas, there’s more grazing of animals including dairy cattle.

 The Black Forest was very white today, with a very significant accumulation of snow and it was still falling, along with sleet, hail and slush. As we’ve seen all along, spring had been well along before this snowfall.

Our destination was a complex of businesses,  where we saw two interesting demonstrations: the construction of cuckoo clocks and the assembly of Black Forest Cakes.

There were showrooms and sales areas, and a huge clock that took up the side of one building. This site has been operating since the 19th or early 20th century, serving merchants who lived in or travelled through the area, and is making great strides to become totally green. Conditions prevented us exploring the property, but the main area was interesting to visit. Of course, we had some of the cake, which was delicious and not very similar to what I used to make. Maybe I’ll try again with the recipe I brought home.

The trip back took us first through a very narrow valley whose name is something like “Hell’s Canyon”, where we saw Stag’s Leap and heard that legend, and then into an area known as Heaven. The canyon was a favourite place for bandits to attack passing merchants.

 We also passed through Freiburg, which is a very old, very interesting city, but we only saw it as we drove through. Back at the Tialfi, we were greeted with hot chocolate, which was most welcome. A very nice lunch followed. We decided not to brave the weather again, so rested and worked on the blog all afternoon. The Captain’s welcome reception preceded dinner. 

 We met a couple of new women at the reception and a group of four women friends at dinner, then rejoined last night’s group for trivia. That was a riot of laughter, but clever as we were, we didn’t win the bottle of champagne. Sadly, we were told that there will be no more opportunities to show off our trivia skills.

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