Day 17 - A cuckoo clock, a hell train, and walking in the rain (Stuttgart)

Stuttgart, Germany

Today was a day to explore another part of the Black Forest before heading back north to the city of Stuttgart for the night.

After a couple warm days in shorts it was back down to a brisk 8C and overcast skies today. In fact, there was rain in the forecast starting in the early afternoon.

Gone were the shorts subbed back in for the pants and umbrella.

Before we left Triberg, however, there were still a couple of things to do this morning…

Butcher’s breakfast

After crashing in bed at a respectable 9:30pm last night, we were up bright and early at 7:30 this morning.

Time for some breakfast.

Now, if I hadn’t already mentioned it, Triberg is a very small town.

So, with that in mind, it’s kind of hard to find places to eat. I had long given up trying to find someone catering to celiacs. Just finding an open restaurant has been hard.

But, again, that’s to be expected when the town is literally just one main street a few blocks long.

The restaurant we had gone to yesterday was still closed when we went by this morning so we’d have to find somewhere else to go.

There were a couple cafés open but they only served freshly baked breads and sandwiches.

I pretty quickly became resigned to just skipping breakfast and waiting a few hours for lunch.

And then I saw a little pig painted on a wall above a shop down a side street.

Hmm, could it be a butcher shop?

Indeed, it was.

And for the street I could see a selection of cheeses.

And where there’s cheese, there’s surely deli meats!

I went inside and they did, in fact, have both meat and cheese but they also had something else that caught my eye.

Full cooked chicken legs sitting under a heat lamp.

Uh, yeah, looks like I’m having over roasted chicken for breakfast this morning.

And, you know what? It made me happy.

Two chicken legs cost me less than €5 ($7) and I happily walked down the street ripping into them, my hands drenched in grease.

Just your typical day traveling through Germany, you know. Guy walking down the street eating chicken with his bare hands at 9 in the morning.

Going cuckoo

Trying to avoid the gong show of trying to get to the world’s largest cuckoo clock that we had yesterday, I suggested we just ask the front desk to call us a taxi to take us there instead.

At quarter to 9, we checked out, stored our bags in the taxi and drove up to where the cuckoo clock was.

Using Google Translate, I asked the driver to drive us there, wait for us while we explored, and then drive us to the train station.

We ended up spending about 20 minutes there just perusing around inside and then watching a (pretty lacklustre) cuckoo go cuckoo at 10am.

In all, the taxi service cost us €32 ($48) split between the two of us.

Was it worth it to spend $24 to get to the clock?

Nah, probably not.

But, then again, it’s the world’s largest cuckoo clock! How could you come to the Black Forest and not see it?

Hell Train

We arrived at the train station with plenty of time to spare before our train was due to leave.

The S10 train, known as Höllentalbahn or The Hell Valley train, leaves every hour and crosses across the Höllental valley crossing the Ravenna Gorge and ending in the town of Freiburg im Breisgau.

When I was reading up things to do in the Black Forest, this was one of the things on the list so obviously I had it marked off as something to do.

The plan was to take the 2 hour train ride, enjoy the views, and spend a couple hours in Freiburg exploring before heading on a train in the late afternoon to Stuttgart.

Shawn, wanting to see the Mercedes Museum in Stuttgart, opted to go his own way directly to Stuttgart early.

So, it was just me today riding the train and exploring Freiburg and, I won’t lie, it was kind of nice to explore on my own again.

The views only really begin an hour into the train trip so I spent the first hour punching out my blog for yesterday.

As we traveled along, you could see the rain start to pelt the train windows and as you looked out all you saw was grey sky.

And that gorge we went over?

Yeah, I was on the wrong side of the train.

Honestly, I don’t even think if I was on the right side of the train, I would have seen anything substantial either since no one in the train car was really looking outside at all.

Oh well, at least it was a nice relaxing ride on the train.

I popped on Dancing In The Moonlight on loop on my headphones and just smiled as we rode along into Freiburg.

Black Forest “Cake”

At quarter after one, I arrived in Freiburg.

It was pouring rain but at least it wasn’t as cold or windy as it was earlier in the trip.

A little rain is nothing for me, I mean, I’m from Vancouver.

I noticed a bakery that offered gluten free cakes that I had marked on my map was close to the train station so I made my way over there.

I knew it was a long shot, but maybe, just maybe, they’d have a gluten free black forest cake.

I mean, how could I not have black forest cake in the Black Forest, right?

Sadly they didn’t have the cake but I was able to kind of create a substitute that I think would mark that off my list.

I had a piece of there gluten free chocolate cake and they offered to put fresh made whip cream on top. I also snagged the only red bottle of juice/pop/soda I could find in the fridge.

It turned out to be a raspberry and plum mix and, for me, that completed my black forest cake.

So, yeah, I did it.

I had a black forest cake in the Black Forest.

Sure, I bent the rules (alot) but, dammit, I’m counting it!

Walking in the rain

After cake I just wandered out towards the city center to see what I’d see.

Freiburg is a much larger city than Triberg and alot bigger than I had pictured considering it’s in the Black Forest.

By now it was pouring rain and people were hiding under the awnings of different stores.

I tried as best I could to see some sites and snap some photos, but after awhile, I just wanted to get inside and grab something to eat.

There were a couple places I had marked on my map as gluten friendly and this afternoon I was craving a burger.

Ah, a burger on a gluten free bun on a gloomy, rainy day.

Perfect!

At 3:30 I was back at the train station to catch my 3:55 train.

Sorry, I meant my 4:10 train.

Yup, delayed again.

I ended up missing my transfer train but the next one was only a few minutes later so it wasn’t all that bad.

only 2 min to run to next rain from 3 to 14

At 6:30 I finally arrived in Stuttgart.

One night in Stuttgart

A half hour later I was finally at my hostel.

The setup here is so weird. You enter on the 7th floor which is ground level and take an elevator down to the 5th floor to checkin.

The rooms, however, are on the 3rd floor and our particular room was in building A which is a long walk in a corridor until you reach another elevator. This elevator takes you up to the 6th floor where our room is.

Got all that? Weird, right?

I entered the room to find Shawn was already hanging out.

After getting settled in for awhile, we headed out into the rainy night to get some dinner.

There was a dedicated gluten free restaurant on the other side of town I had my eyes on.

Everything on their menu was gluten free and they had a large selection of different meals so I was pretty excited to go there.

At 9pm we had arrived at Reiskorn restaurant.