The best known holiday area in Germany’s southwest is the Black Forest.
Wonderful hiking trails lead through vast woods, picturesque valleys and along small brooks. Green meadows around typical farm houses turn in winter to ski and sleigh runs that make the Black Forest a 12 months holiday paradise.
In summer this holiday region lures with excellent possibilities for walking, hiking and climbing, nordic walking, mountain hikes and motorcycle tours and, last but not least for swimming in lakes, thermal baths and outdoor swimming pools or for having a good time in activity and animal parks. An experience that should not be missed is a tour with the Black Forest train which winds its way though countless hairpins bends and tunnels.
In winter a ride on a horse sledge through snowy forests is especially romantic. Atmospheric Christmas fairs and sport activities as walking on snow shoes, cross-country skiing, skiing and snowboarding are very popular, too.
A diverse regional and international kitchen excites its guests on sunny terraces or in comfortable restaurants as much as on a cosy Après ski evening. Thus everybody finds in the Black Forest what he/she is looking for, young and old, sportsmen and gourmets, party fans and those looking for slow tourism and relaxation.
Black Forest Houses
Black Forest Houses are characterised externally by a long hipped or half-hipped roof that covers rooms, barns, balconies and yards for firewood. Mostly built at slopes, the valley side of the house is multi-storey while the side focusing the hill houses the entrance to the barn. This type of architecture is mainly found in the Black Forest’s central and southern parts and gave big families lots of space. Suited to the conditions of the Black Forest: hillside locations, broad tracks, high levels of snowfall and heavy wind loading, individual houses can be over 400 years old. Today many of them have been renovated into attractive hotels or accommodate holiday apartments.
Life in the Black Forest can be experienced in the Vogtsbauernhof Open Air Museum where the hard and everyday life of families, farmers, charcoal burners and craftsmen until the middle of the 19th century can be relived in a rebuilt village. What did people for a living before there was tourism? How did a farmhouse parlour look like? Why were people and animals under one single roof? How does smell and taste bread made in wooden stoves? You will find answers to many questions. A visit to the open-air museum is definitely worthwhile because it makes you feel like being in a different world.
Since around 1750 the white straw hat with 14 woollen balls called Bollen are part of the protestant church‘s national costume of three Black Forest villages in the Kinzigtal. Unmarried women wear a red, married women a black hat. The hat can be heavy as up to 2 kilograms and still is manufactured in handicraft. Because of his unusual design it is internationally known and became the symbol of the Black Forest.
TIP: If you like to find out more about national costumes and customs of the Black Forest, you might want to visit the Schwarzwälder Trachtenmuseum in Haslach. The former cloister exhibits over 100 national costumes. Some of them are still today worn by women, men or children for special events. Ornately manufactured objects which enriched life, festivities and everyday life make the exhibition especially worth seeing.
The first cuckoo clock was invented in the Black Forest somewhere in the first half of the 18th century. Till this day it is traditionally manufactured here. In the course of the years many variations of cuckoo clocks have developed. From a simple wooden implementation with a little door from where at each full hour the cuckoo calls, to luxuriously formed, colourful and carved watches in which figures turn around, there is today a broad spectrum of cuckoo clocks. Since a couple of years there even are models made of plastic instead of wood.
TIP: Visit the idyllic small town Triberg with the worldwide biggest cuckoo clock and the Black Forest museum where you can discover old crafts as straw plaiting, file cutting and watch making. A watchmaker's workshop from 1860 is especially worth seeing. The extensive collection of watches is complemented with national costumes from the Black Forest, all in original size. Additionally, the powerful sound of a mechanical farm chapel gives good mood.
The "Sauschwänzlebahn", literally called pig tail’s train, is an amazing piece of engineering. Opened „recently“ in 1977, the romantic route of the train is an important technical cultural monument. A historical steam engine drives the line full of bends through the valley of Wutachtal. High railway bridges span picturesque valleys, tunnels let the steam come into the carriages and the view of green meadows with lots of Black Forest houses makes the journey a unique attraction.
Have you ever heard the word "Schnefler"? It is a craft that was exercised for a long time in the scanty mountain landscape around Bernau. The village never had enough to live on. Thus they earned some additional money by „schnefeln“, working on wood. In the middle of the 19th century there were still some 200 Schnefler, wood working craftsmen in Bernau. They handcrafted over 280 different articles as for example wooden spoons, ladles, buckets, chip boxes, pairs of bellows, brush woods and mouse traps.
Photo: Gengenbach, Leonid Andronov/Shutterstock
