Drawn towards Schwarzwald, or the Black Forest region, in Germany by the thoughts of cuckoo clocks and wooden houses, we headed away from Switzerland and back through a tiny bit of France towards Staufen. We drove along a wine road, and through plenty of fields which were full of grains and potatoes and other edibles, until we came to Furtwangen, and it’s lovely clock museum. We toured the museum and learned about the history of clocks which was actually quite interesting. I felt like the English guide they provided was a big help, but I still missed some things, because there were a few panels which were not translated. After finding out that the cuckoo clock design had originally been the winner of a design contest and was then put into production, we got to see lots of cuckoo clocks and other clocks as well.
We had dinner at a local hotel and it was excellent! Both Mom and I were thrilled to be in Germany because the food (and for me, the beer) is fantastic and affordable! The best part of the meal to me was the salad bar, because it had lots of different vegetable salads that you could choose from. The spatzle was good too, but I found out that in Schwarzwald the traditional way of making it is like linguini noodles, not little dumplings, and I was somewhat sad about that. I look forward to trying it in the north and comparing!
After camping overnight at a small campground which was way off the beaten path, and from the road appeared to be someone’s backyard, we headed to the Schwarzwalder Freilichtmuseum. This open air museum has been created in Gutach to serve as an example of how people lived in “yesteryear” in the Black Forest. There were over twenty buildings, ranging from workshops and farm houses, to an oil mill, a hemp mill, and a knock-and-drop sawmill. Seeing all of these buildings, many of which had people carrying out activities in the old ways, was very interesting and we had a nice morning peeking inside of each and reading about their history. Another nice part was the farming section, where they had planted a number of local crops and signs explain what each was. There were many different kinds of grains, beetroots, potatoes, and hemp and getting to check them out up close was helpful in understanding what is still being grown in the areas nearby today.