July 1st: The Black Forest

After an overnight stop at Nuremburg, we arrive at Lake Titisee. There’s also a small town of that name at the opposite end of the lake to the camp site. The site is at the lakeside, in terraces, so each pitch has a view of the water, trees permitting. The trees aren’t permitting you to see our caravan. 

There is a lovely lakeside walk to the town on a wide, well surfaced path. Titisee itself is very commercialised but pleasant for all that, and its many cafes do good coffee and kuchen, with a splendid outlook as in the photo.

The tripper boat on the right glides around the lake powered by an electric motor so that the environment isn’t polluted. We can vouch for that as we did the cruise and we weren’t polluted or even electrocuted. The majority of visitors in the town are of the older age group, so we fit in here comfortably.

Until the 1920’s much of the central Black Forest was isolated from the outside world so tourism is of fairly recent origin. In fact, many of the old tracks and trails have been turned into a highly organised network of footpaths that attracts many hikers, and to show we weren’t totally in the old fogies camp just yet, we did walk the 4 ½ miles around the lake.

We also paid a visit to Freiburg, the “Capital of the Black Forest”. The city considers itself as much Austrian as German since the region was under the protection and therefore influence of the Austrian Habsburg Empire for 450 years.

It’s certainly a splendid city that suffered a relatively small amount of war damage, from a single air raid, in 1944. The large cathedral, dating from about 1200, is especially magnificent. It is made of dark red sandstone and, as with many large buildings in ancient towns, it’s almost impossible to snap a view that does it justice, not only because of the press of other buildings but here in the Munster Square there is also a big market and several marquees all fighting for space. The central tower was the best I could do, and even that is partly hidden by scaffolding. The church interior was closed for renovation.

Some attractive buildings elsewhere, too, like the theatre.

This is one of the old town fortified towers that blends in beautifully with the later style buildings, but maybe not so well with the Pedestrian Zone sign.

The streets even retain the open gutters of the ancient sewerage system. Only water runs through them these days, although it was a shame that I hadn’t got the caravan toilet to empty so as to check that the system was still fully functional.

As can be seen, the streets in the old town are cobbled and there are many alleyways and little courtyards that make it an interesting town to explore at random.

Some of the later buildings, probably 1920’s, had some interesting carvings as for example the Pan figure flanked by two bare-breasted maidens who could almost be having mobile phones conversations. 

It is ironic that these scantilly clad females are fronting a building occupied by the Salvation Army (the two red shields between the figures), but then perhaps it advertises their willingness to guide such women back onto the straight and narrow.

We have been in Titisee for a week: a very relaxing, if rather wet, week. Tomorrow, 9^th July, we head for home, but are calling in on Adam and Alison first for the weekend.