Triberg to Frankfurt

Today, in Triberg, Germany, we woke up to the first sunny morning since we had arrived in Germany.  The skies were clear, and it was cool outside with a little breeze, and there was no rain clouds in sight (finally).  We went to breakfast in the hotel, and then packed up our bags and checked out.  The plan for the day was to walk around Triberg, looking at cuckoo clocks, but of course, being Sunday morning, none of the shops were open yet.

We packed everything up in the car, and headed out to take a picture of what is claimed to the the world’s largest cuckoo clock.  It s part of a store front a few kilometers outside of Triberg.  We found it without too much problem, but as the instruction had indicated, it is easy to pass by the first time, which we did, and we had to turn around to go back to the store and park to take

some pictures.  It was about 10 minutes to 10:00 AM, so Stephanie grabbed the video camera and waited until the hour changed for the clock to “cuckoo”.  In the meantime, a bus loaded with German tourists also pulled up and surrounded the car, all of them waiting for the top of  hour to arrive for the show.  I was busy in the car trying to map out our route back to Frankfurt, which is about a three hour drive to the north.  The clock did its thing, and after all of the tourists left, so did we.

We stopped at a clock store outside of Triberg, part of the largest clock store chain in the area selling most of the main name brands of cuckoo clocks.  We thought we would at least look at them here in the Black Forest area, since it is the home of the cuckoo clock in Bavaria.  We had seen some we liked in Rothenburg, but thought the prices might be better here, and they were.  We were looking for a particular one we had seen in Rothenburg, but this particular store did

not have one that was the same as the one we wanted.  The larger store, back in Triberg, had a bigger selection according to the salesperson at this smaller store, so we headed back there to look at that larger store.  After finding a parking space, which turned out to be one of the hardest things to do in Triberg, both this morning, and last night, we headed to the store.

The salesman was very nice and informative, and explained all of the differences in the various clocks.  We did not find the particular one we had seen earlier in the trip, but we did find on that we liked just as well.  There are various clock types to choose from, all in about 4-5 different themes.  There is a wood chopper, a beer drinker, a maiden, some men cutting wood with a saw, and some children playing.  We had wanted one with a Bavarian dressed beer drinker, and he hoists beers when the clock reaches the hour, the higher number the hour, the more beers he hoists.  They all have two songs included.

We wanted on that would run 8 days.  The options are winding every day, or eight days.  The 8 day clock has about 10 lbs of weights, which, of course,  adds to the shipping charges.  If we carried the weights home with us, it saved some in shipping, but we decided to let them ship the weights also, so it would all be packaged together.  Pus, we probably don’t have ten pounds of extra weight room in our suitcases with the airline weight restrictions.  We went ahead and bought the clock, and paid to have it shipped to us in Florida.  It will be a nice memento to the trip.

We then walked back up to the Triberg Falls we had visited yesterday, hoping to get some better pictures since the sun was out.  We only walked up to the lowest level, and the pictures were a little better, but the sun had not yet gotten high enough to fully shine fully on the falls, it was still blocked by the mountains and trees.  However, some sun meant better pictures than the ones we took yesterday with the cloudy conditions.

Afterward, we headed out of Triberg and drove north toward Freudenstadt, which was the town where something called the “high road” begins.  The high road runs along the mountain ridge between Freudenstadt and Baden-Baden, which is one of the larger towns in the Black Forest area.  It was a scenic drive to Freudenstadt, some of the trees were changing color.  We stopped several times, and took pictures along the way.  We went through a lot of small towns, all of which were very colorful.

We reached Freudenstadt, and then headed for Baden-Baden via the high road.  It was not as scenic as we thought it would be, a lot of the area had been cut for lumber, and the trees had not grown back yet.  There were some high elevation views of the valley below at several vantage points we stopped at.  There was also one resort at the highest elevation point of the trip and there were literally hundreds of cars parked along the road there, it was for people to park at for access to the hiking trails in the area.  Being Sunday, and a beautiful sunny day, we think everyone from the area must be out driving today.  Also, there seemed to be a lot of motorcyclists riding around the curvy roads, going very fast, and always passing, more than I have ever seen on one road.

We finally made it into Baden-Baden, and went into the center of the city looking for a bite to eat.  Being a Sunday, there were even lots of people milling around the city center, and we could not find a spot to park.  At one point, I think we went into a pedestrian only area, there were many people walking through, and they would not move for us to get to the next street.   I think we got a lot of dirty looks for being in a non-driving area, but since I was trying to concentrate on not running them over, I am not sure.  Once through all of that congestion, we decided that we would just put our Frankfurt hotel address into the GPS and head out of Baden-Baden, still hoping to see somewhere to eat that was convenient to stop at with a car.  Had we been walking, I am sure we could have found something, however, we quickly discovered that having a car in the middle of a city is not an easy thing.

We headed to the Autobahn for the hour and a half drive to the hotel near the Frankfurt Airport.  We were zipping along averaging about 170 kph when the GPS told us we were getting re-routed due to severe

traffic congestion.  About 2 kilometers later, we started to see cars stopping, and the traffic was backed up to a standstill.   Before we actually stopped, there was an ambulance and police car coming up from behind us, heading to the accident.  We were able to make it to the next exit, the one the GPS instructed us to exit on, and it rerouted us about 20 km around the accident, and back up on to the Autobahn.  Our older GPS does not have that rerouting capability, and it was a really nice feature.  We ended up stopping at a rest stop, similar to the ones on the Florida Turnpike.  There was a fairly nice restaurant there, and we grabbed a bite to eat.  Since we were stopped, we also decided to use the restrooms, only to find there was a Euro 2.00 per person fee to use them, which was about half  as much as our lunch cost.  Not really needing to complete that mission, not for that price anyway, we headed back to the car and completed the drive to the hotel.

Once we checked in, we unloaded the suitcases, and thought about heading to a grocery store, and then to get a bite to eat before taking the car to the airport and dropping it off.  We plugged in the nearest grocery store location into the GPS, a mere 3.6 km. from the hotel.  Well, having not used the “locate nearest grocery store” feature on the GPS before, after following the directions for the drive, it was obvious the store was 3.6 km. as the crow flies, i.e. in a straight line, not in driving distance.  It was actually about a 10 km driving route to the store, which was OK, we thought it would get us away from the airport where we could fin a less expensive gas station to up fill the rental car, and go to the grocery for some snacks for the flight tomorrow, all in one trip.  About half way there, after finding a gas station and filling up, I realized that we had never seen any grocery stores in Germany open on Sunday, and sure enough,the one we drove to was closed when we got there.  In addition, there were no places to eat in that area, we were definitely in a semi-industrial area of Frankfurt, being that close to the airport.

We then decided to just go ahead drop the car off at the airport, and eat in the airport, which we did.  Nothing special, just a couple of sandwiches and a big pretzel.  But, the ambiance was just spectacular, lots of travelers with suitcases!  We then took the free hotel shuttle bus back to our hotel.  The total time to complete this last adventure was about two hours, we never would have though that to be the case.  Certainly, we are spoiled with the ability to find some type of fast food places to eat at in the USA, and the convenience of  having grocery stores open on Sunday.  I do not think we ever saw any type of place to eat at today that you could just drive to,  park and go inside for a quick meal, they just done’ exist, and it really makes things harder when you are driving a car in unfamiliar surroundings.  There were always some places to eat if you were on foot, but parking in most cities is by permit, or for a fee, if you can even find any open spaces.

Back at the hotel, we completed our packing, and had a glass of wine before retiring for the night.  We will be going to the airport around 8:00 AM tomorrow morning utilizing the free hotel shuttle, for our return flight home home.

It has been a good trip, certainly full of learning experiences,  like most of these trips are.  We will just have to plan another trip in the future to visit the sights we were unable to see having to go home early.  Hopefully, the flights home will be good, we won’t have any delays, and will get home on time with all of our luggage.  We will have to quickly re-pack for the trip to South Carolina for Dad’s funeral.

We are signing off for now, but will make some adjustments to the posts, add some more pictures, and make some edits.  Like our other trips, we will put the postings in chronological order now that the trip is completed, and no longer need the normal reverse order posting.

Thanks for following.

Informational Footnote – Added in 2012

It was not until we were planning another trip to Germany in 2012 that we realized why it was so crowded on the roads through Baden Baden on the last day of this trip.  We “accidentally” learned during planning for the subsequent trip that October 3 is Germany Unification Day, a major holiday in Germany.  That was the reason that so many people were traveling on the High Road the day we were heading to Frankfurt, it was October 3.  We were unaware that this was the case until we were trying to rent a car on that date for a subsequent trip, and found the rental car agencies were closed during the middle of the week.  This prompting the investigation into why they were closed where we discovered that October 3  was a national holiday date.  Now we know why it was so crowded in all fo the cities and on the roads, it was not just because it was a nice sunny day!!