Triberg

Someone in Kandern recommended A and I go to Triberg, a small town known as the "Heart of the Black Forest."  It boasts having the largest cuckoo clock in the world as well as the House of a Thousand Clocks (cuckoo clocks were invented in the Black Forest area, so they're a big deal here), and it's also said to have the highest waterfall in Germany.  So A and I caught a bus and two trains to Triberg on Friday the 20th.

The person who'd recommended Triberg to us had said to make sure to look out the train windows during the last leg of the journey because we would see some of the most gorgeous landscapes ever.  However, I forgot about this part of the recommendation and had my nose in a book (surprise, surprise) during the last leg of the journey.  So I did not see the most gorgeous landscapes ever, but oh well.  It was a good book.  

We got off at the Triberg bahnhof (train station) and seemed to be in the middle of nowhere.  To our right were the train tracks and beyond them a sheer mountain face made of slabs of rock and persevering pine trees.  To our left, was the bahnhof, a mostly empty building and parking lot.  Unsure of ourselves, we boarded the first bus that showed up, hoping that it would take us into Triberg proper.  It did.  We drove away from the bahnhof, went around a bend in the road, came around a cluster of pine trees, and there was Triberg.  A handful of steeply roofed houses clustered in a small valley.  It had been there all along, but the trees had made it look like the bahnhof was in the middle of nowhere.  

We got off at a bus stop along the main street, grabbed some lunch, which included an interesting dessert called a Marzipan Kartoffel ("kartoffel" means "potato"), and then walked around Triberg.  

More interesting signs announcing that this is where a shop or a guesthouse is

We wandered into some shops, one of which was full of hand-carved wooden crafts.  The walls and shelves were absolutely packed with objects.  There were dozens of masks hanging from the ceiling, most of them animals or angry/scary looking people.  It was kind of frightening but also rather fascinating.

We saw these statues along our path too.  I thought they looked somewhat like Easter Island heads but with bizarre hats.  A and I didn't know what the hats were at the time, but I looked the hats up later.  They're called pompom hats and are part of the traditional outfit of people in this area of Germany.  Only women wear them, I think.  Unmarried women wear red pompoms while married women wear black pompoms.  So I guess these statues are trying to say they want a date?

And we saw cuckoo clocks.  So many cuckoo clocks.  There were cuckoo clocks in almost all the shops, and we also went to the House of a Thousand Clocks, which basically is a shop with so many clocks that it's probably the place where time began.  

The clocks were all intricate and detailed and unique.  If they'd all had batteries and been set to the right time, I'd have wanted to wait until the hour and hear all of them cuckoo at once.

Then A and I walked to the Triberg waterfalls.  A winding asphalt path led up through the forest to several different bridges and viewing points.  The sounds of water splashing and people talking filled the spaces between the trees along with the shafts of yellow sunlight and the twittering of birds.  It was a nice walk, with or without the waterfall.

The waterfall itself was not as impressive as it was hyped up to be, but it was still pretty to see and listen to.  There was a lot of filming equipment set up on the rocks alongside the waterfall - speakers, lights, and other technical gear - because, a sign announced, that a movie would be filmed here sometime in July.  The filming gear made for a weird contrast with nature.

A and I found a bench near the waterfall and sat and listened to it.  Then we walked farther up, wondering if the path led to yet another waterfall or if this was it.  We came across a wooden ticketing/information booth and asked the woman in it if we should keep going up.  She said the path led to a parking lot at this point, no more waterfalls, so we headed back down.  Not five minutes down the path, a group of about six people was clustered together.  One of them asked me, "Do you speak English?  Do you know if there's another waterfall higher up?" Infinite in my wisdom, I sagely replied, "No, it's just a parking lot," and continued on my way.  I like encountering other travelers who are just as clueless as I am.  It makes being around strangers so much more companionable.  

A and I walked around Triberg a little while longer before grabbing a bite to eat (some day I'm going to write a post about all the foods I'm eating) and trying out some Black Forest Cake.  I didn't like the cake - it tasted like cherry-flavored cough syrup - but that's okay.  The goal was to be able to say I've eaten Black Forest Cake in the Black Forest, so it was a successful endeavor.  

A and I caught our train back to Kandern, and so ended our day in Triberg.  It was an interesting day and an interesting town.  A little odd, to be honest.  Parts of the town were very cute and picturesque with colorful houses and appealing shop windows.  But other buildings looked run down with cracked and peeling paint and discolored shutters.  Some buildings were vacant with FOR RENT signs in the windows.  Several large trucks drove down the main street too, very loud and jarring from a "cute little town" feel.  Then there were the historical information signs posted around town.  A and I would stumble across these signs as we were walking, and the signs had some interesting tidbits of information on them, but the information was kind of random.  Like one of the signs said that this spot we were at had once been the house of the town hangman.  Then another sign said that this location had been the site of executions.  Another sign said that this house was where a famous Russian chess player had lived.  So Triberg had some oddities about it.  I'm glad I saw it though.