A Tale of Torte, Waterfalls and Cuckoo Clocks: A Week in the Black Forest

“To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.” – Bill Bryson 

We spent six relaxed nights in the Black Forest at Joklisbauernhof in Gutach im Schwarzwald. This was our first bauernhof, or farm stay, and the kids loved it. We were given an apartment four hundred metres from the main farm house which was absolutely perfect for us.

Our hosts Martin and Elfriede Moser work tirelessly on the farm and for their guests. Their home is a gorgeous traditional Black Forest house, with dark timber, balconies and geraniums galore. In the under croft of the house lived the cows including a newborn calf. 

Every morning we would walk over to the main farm house for Frühstück, a tasty traditional German breakfast. This included bread, cheese, boiled eggs, various meats including the delicious black forest ham, cakes or sweet bread and various jams. Best of all most of the food was homemade on the farm.

Every Friday is bread day and the wood fired oven is lit and local people from all over the area come to buy Elfriede’s delicious bread. The children were kindly allowed to help and they enjoyed kneading the dough and shaping their bread, which they were given fresh and hot from the oven to eat later in the day.

Most of the property was a forest covered hill and we took a wander up to get a lovely view of the surrounding area and to enjoy the fresh air. On the way back we bumped into Martin who had collected fresh meadow grass for his cows and he took the kids back in the cab of his tractor. By the time we arrived back the kids had fed with cows and were very pleased with themselves.

Though many of the guests were couples there were also a few families. The kids loved the fact that there are cats running around, rabbits in hutches and a huge collection of kids play things. There were swings and a trampoline but most popular were the go-karts which the kids would have spent all day every day on if given the chance.

Our kids would zoom up and down narrowly avoiding a couple of French boys doing the same thing. As they had no language in common their communication was limited to our kids yelling “Ça va” on the way past and they French boys rolling their eyes.

Though we could easily have just stayed on the farm we did enjoy day tripping in the Black Forest. As we were staying in the area we were given a pass entitling us to free public transport which we took great advantage of.

One day we caught the bus down to Triberg, possibly the cuckoo clock capital of the world. While I wouldn’t say the town was my favourite of the beautiful Black Forest towns but the Triberg Falls, behind the town, the tallest waterfall in Germany, were stunning.

It made a lovely, gentle, shady walk on a hot and sunny day. Yes, finally it looked as if summer had arrived and boy was hot. We enjoyed lunch at a traditional Baden-Wuerttemberg restaurant, with boars heads on the walls, delicious fresh fish, salad, sauerkraut and maultachen, similar to big ravioli, which the kids loved.

After walking through the forest past the waterfall, without seeing a single red squirrel (we had bought nuts for them that the kids enjoyed eating themselves), we head to the terrific playground at the base.

The kids were keen to get their shoes off and play but I made the mistake of telling them we could have ice cream after and so the playground was quickly abandoned.

While it was shame to give such a great playground such short shift it did give me the opportunity to try my first Schwarzwalder Kirche Torte, and to have Black Forest Torte in the Black Forest was such a treat. I studied German in high school and “ich möchte ein Stuck Schwarzwalder Kirche Torte" was a favourite phrase I just knew would come in handy one day.

I don't have much of a sweets tooth so it was a delight to discover that here in the Black Forest its famous torte is much less sweet than you would expect. The cream was lightly flavoured with Kirche and the cake was feather light and the generous layer of cherries were delicious.

One very hot day we caught the bus just down the road to the Schwarzwälder Freilichtmuseum Vogtsbauernhof where a number of very old Black Forest houses have been relocated onto this property to keep company with the original farmhouse, shown above. The children were very keen to start with, running through the farmhouses looking at everything. And then the day got hotter and their attention wandered.

We agreed to visit the mill where there was to be a demonstration before we left. It was such an experience to see the watermill turning and as a result various mechanisms throughout the mill, turning the grind stone or thumping into a mortar to grind the grain or to pull a string to ring a bell. It was marvellous to consider the ingenuity of our long ago forbearers.

And as for the current generation, they were keen to head next door to the Rodelbahn, a fabulous summer toboggan ride on a rail down the mountain. We all were entitled to one free trip with our guest cards but I was so very hot I was keen to sit out and watch them enjoy the exhilarating ride.

Emma was pleased to ride alone and Rob and Julian rode together. Of course they could not limit their enjoyment to one ride and as soon as they were at the bottom they were off to the ticket office.

Something I should definitely mention is that staying in the Black Forest provides incredible value for money. Rodelbahn tickets €2 for a child and only €2.50 for an adult.Our accommodation was only €22 per night, for four of us and so we added breakfast and with tourist tax added it came to under €55 per night for four people in a lovely two bedroom apartment. Food was also incredibly affordable, a fact we appreciated more when we arrived in Switzerland which was frightfully expensive.

 Back in the Black Forest the kids had finished their ride and we walked to the bus stop. We had a few minutes to wait for the bus and so I suggested that we go quickly down to the river and wet our feet to cool down.

It was about 34oC and while we were used to hotter at home having acclimatised to the UK we found it terribly hot. Of course asking kids to wet their feet and nothing else in a river is never a likely proposition and we took two quite soggy kids on the bus home that day.

We had planned a trip to Gengenbach the next day, but again it was hot so the plan went out the window and we instead caught the train down to Sankt Georgen im Schwarzwald where there is a lake to swim in. On the train we played count the tunnels as the train travelled through the beautiful forest. Rob believes the final count was thirty seven, none very long, which we know as we played “hold your breath in the tunnel” and we all survived the experience.

After we arrived we climbed up into the town to find somewhere for lunch. This was a huge mistake, firstly as there was a café at the lake, 1km from the train station, and secondly as town was at the top of a hill and not much was open. But after lunch we made our way down hill and found the lake, and what we were not expecting was all the inflatable play things, slides and diving boards.

Most of the local population had the same idea as us and it was a great way to spend the day. I found a shady spot and watched as hot bodies hit cold lake water and quickly took on a blue tinge.Rob even braved the huge iceberg in the middle of the lake much to the amusement of the masses. It appeared to take quite an effort to climb it, with lots of snickering going on from the watchers but after he dived in there was a smattering of applause.

The next day the rain returned and we decided to use our last day for a nice lunch in another typical Black Forest Village, Schiltach. We even researched were to have a great lunch. When we arrived in the rain at just after one o'clock we were told that sadly lunch was finished.

So we returned to the town square and found a Konditorei that served soup (hmm canned I think), Flammkuchen (extremely good pizza) and cake (mmmmmmmm so good). And there sadly we leave the Black Forest, and Germany too for now, with the cold wet weather set in again and with our fingers crossed for our week in Switzerland. See you there.