As part of my work, I found myself in Germany for 2 weeks in the lovely township of Mainz, which is just outside Frankfurt am main, and situated on the Rhien. I took the opportunity to visit the neighbouring city of Wiesbaden, which is situated on the opposite side of the Rhine. Both cities are really nice, but I was quite taken by the cathedral in Wiesbaden. The river was also quite a sight to behold due to the heavy spring rains which lead to so-called “century” flooding (the severe floods which are said to occur once every hundred years) for the second time in 8 years. All bank-side infrastructure was underwater, further upstream the floodgates had been opened, wiping out crops and farmland just to try to prevent flooding of the cities. The volume of water in the river was is hard to comprehend; I am used to “big” rivers, but when the main artery of Europe is swelling, you know there is going to be trouble.

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The group of people I was working with were delightful and extremely welcoming toward me. One of the highlights for me was having a typical German barbecue in the the park, which was a nice throwback to my last stint in Germany. At one point, someone happened to be cooking some cobs of corn, and someone else had just finished eating. The person in question said "Can I have one of your pumpkins?" Now English was not their first language, but they were near perfect. Everyone around the table assumed, well they probably meant the corn and just got the words confused, and thus they were offered the corn. Utterly confused, they grabbed at some serviettes sitting on the table. It was obvious that somewhere pumpkin and napkin had been tangled up, but the resulting 30 seconds was hilarious. Good times.

The black forest

Having a single weekend in Germany, it was necessary to make the most of it and one area that I had never visited whilst I was living in Germany in 2011 was the south west, in the black forest. Conveniently located roughly half way between Mainz and Genena, it meant that Mia was along for the ride. We met in Offenburg, just on the cusp of forest, mainly for logistical reasons. Early on Saturday morning we took a train into the thick of it. We went to the picturesque village of Triberg, whose claim to fame is that it hosts Germany’s largest waterfall. We ditched our bags at our accommodation and after putting on sunscreen for the first time in a long while, we set out. First destination was the waterfall, which is really in the heart of town. It was a really nice, however Mia was a little under-whelmed by the number of squirrels, which were advertised to be in abundance. We then took a walk through the forest, with the destination of an old lookout tower. The tower was nothing too special; it had been converted into a restaurant, but we were able to get a beer and climb the tower, so that is something. The real highlight was walking through the forest; it is just so lush and dense. There are walking tracks that go every which way which can get a little confusing, but the signage is decent, but perhaps a little irregular.

Some pretty cascades we came across whilst walking

In the evening, we went to a traditional Swabian restaurant to try the regional specialities; spaetzle, schenken, boar and of course, Black forest cake. The meals were delicious and the accompanying beers went down very well, but the whole time I was looking forward to the desert. We decided to get 2 deserts, a slice of cake and some some ice-cream. The slice cake was massive, and we were immediately happy with our decision to get to different deserts. Then came the tasting. I am sure that prior to that point in my life I had eaten black forest cake, but I can not recall an instance, not it obviously did not leave an impression. I just knew it as that chocolate thing with cherries. So after the first bite, I realised that it is also soaked in rum or equivalent. I was so nasty. Mia and I looked at each other and just started laughing at how bad it tasted. And then at how much there was. What ensued was eating of this monster slice of cake as fast as we could just to make the punishment as short as possible. Luckily the ice-cream was not far away and was also delicious. But I don’t think I will be in a rush to get any more black forest cake any-time soon.

On the Sunday we again spent the day walking though the forest, we ended up at the nearby township of Schonach im Schwarzwald, which had a house which was one giant cuckoo clock, but that it about it. On the way back we did a bit a bush bashing, taking the road less travelled and we came across some beautiful cascades, so it made going through the stinging nettles worth it. Once we were back in town, we had enough time for some ice-cream and then it was back to the real world.

Adventures

Germany: Mainz and The Black Forest

The black forest