The Black Forest/ Schwarzwald: The Fairy Tale Country!!

We set out on  our  tour of Central Europe starting from Frankfurt. Since our tour doesn't include the Black Forest, we decided to arrive a few days before the trip and tour this region by ourselves. However, our very close friend offered to drive us to Black Forest, and we accepted his  offer. Despite the rain, we did manage to have good fun there.

The Black Forest:

This is German  fairy tale country, full of creepy legends and such figures as Hansel and Gretel and Snow White. Remember to bring along some breadcrumbs to make a trail home, and watch out for mean, wicked, witches!!!!

Black Forest remains wildly beautiful, with little chapels and wooden farmhouses,and is no longer wild nor isolated, and is popular place for hiking and mountain biking, or just chilling.

The Black Forest is a rather happy place, known for its cherry schnapps, cream-filled cherry cake and cuckoo clocks. The first cuckoo clock was designed here in 1750, and soon farmers all over the Black Forest were spending their snowbound winters carving clocks for additional income. The clocks haven’t changed much since, and are still characterised by gabled roofs, cast-iron pine cone weights and carved adornments. Elaborate versions have music-box figurines that come out to dance or chop wood. However, they are all very expensive, but really worth it for they are all hand made. 
Surprisingly I was told most Germans do not have a Cuckoo Bird Clock, for I believe it is mainly made for the tourists.
Anyway, since I am a die hard tourist, and I do love Cuckoo bird clocks, I bought one from here. Nothing fancy, but a beautiful traditional one.

We visited the Triberg Water Falls: 

                            This is one of the best shops to get authentic Cuckoo Bird Clocks

               one can go mad looking at the various clocks in this shop, it has so many varieties

                                          
Castle like fairy tale buildings in Triberg region

Triberg is located directly on the Black Forest railway line and is famous as Germany's highest waterfalls, which have an overall drop of 163 metres over 7 cascades. There are three entrances to the waterfalls, which are reached via asphalted paths, steps and footbridges. You should be a reasonably good walker of course, and the paths are totally unsuitable during the rains, and unfortunately it rained during our trip. 

However, you can reach the lowest and largest cascade of the waterfall relatively easily from the main entrance.

Later we visited Mummelsee, expecting the weather to improve, but no luck, we could just have the famous Black Forest Cake and see only clouds and no lake from the terrace (right behind me) of the Berghotel there.  If the weather had been good we could have feasted on some wonderful views of both the lake on the banks of which this hotel is situated, and also the great, dark forest ranges there. There are many activities like boating, para sailing etc., that could have been done if the weather was good. All we could do was to dig into the absolutely delicious and sinfully rich Black Forest Cake, for which this hotel is famous for.

The lake is right there behind us, but hidden by heavy clouds. Well this is Germany, where the weather is very unpredictable, it keeps changing and fooling people there all the time. The weather was checked, and it was said to be sunny and pleasant, but still turned  out to be a very rainy day. The next two days were absolutely pleasant and sunny, just our bad luck!!!

Lake Mummelsee is located directly on the Black Forest High Road at 1032 m above sea level. It is one of the few cirque lakes in the Black Forest remaining from the ice age: a magical lake ruled by an underwater king and water nymphs/mermaids, according to the legends. 
At 1032 meters above sea level it is the highest cirque lake in the Black Forest, meaning that it lies in the center of a cone amphitheater created 10,000 years ago during the Ice Age.
There are so many stories regarding this place, some claiming that the nymphs and king rise from 17 meters below the surface each night, while others say it only happens on a full moon. It is also said that, fascinated by many of these stories, the famous Brothers Grimm visited the lake in 1845, collecting retold stories from the forest and to see the lake for themselves.
Never the less, we did enjoy our drive to the Black Forest with our dear friends.
Our friends told us that to do full justice to BF one has to stay here at least for 4/5 days and see all the beautiful places  in and around BF. 
Never mind next time may be.

Now for some history about the cake itself:
Called Schwarzwälderkirschtorte in German, which means Black Forest Cherry Torte or Gateau. This cake has multiple (usually 4) layers of chocolate sponge cake, cherries, and whipped cream. It is frosted with whipped cream and covered with chocolate shavings and a few cherries for decoration. Kirschwasser (cherry schnapps) is used to flavor the whipped cream. The bottom layers of sponge cake are also brushed with Kirschwasser (cherry schnaps) to provide moisture and a little extra flavor.

There are many other ideas on how the cake originally got its name. Some historians say that it is possible that the cake got its name from the traditional costume worn by women in the Black Forest. The dress was black (just like the chocolate flakes), the blouse is white (like the cream), and the hat has red pom-poms that look just like cherries.
Makes sense, what do you think?