Germany: A dream walk on the black side (+photos)

Page 1 of 2 View as a single page 5:00AM Friday April 25, 2008
By Jim Eagles

A giant cuckoo clock the size of a house welcomes visitors to the House of Black Forest Clocks. Photo / Jim Eagles

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I've just achieved one of my lifetime goals: I went for a walk in the Black Forest.

Of course there are other reasons to visit Germany's Black Forest besides walking.

In the course of my own visit there, I watched an old guy carving a cuckoo clock and saw a clock the size of a house; visited a picture-book pretty valley, dotted with gingerbread cottages; ate some scrumptious Black Forest cherry cake; and tried a shot of the local schnapps.

But it was the walk in the trees that really excited me.

Strange, yes, but it all goes back to an episode of the cult BBC radio comedy from the 60s and 70s, I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again - a precursor to Monty Python's Flying Circus and The Goodies - in which the team started a pirate radio station (as everyone did in those days).

Unfortunately, they had only one record so, after the usual meaningless burble from the DJ, he would have to say, "And now for A Walk in the Black Forest," and off it would go, "Dum dum de dum dum dum ..." After a dozen playings the tune rather stuck in my mind.

One day, I swore, I'll do it - I'll walk in the Black Forest.

I had almost forgotten that vow until 40 years on, as I was cruising down the River Rhine on the luxury cruiser Avalon Tapestry, we stopped at the beautiful French city of Strasbourg and on the list of tours available was a half-day tour across the river into Germany and the Black Forest.

All at once I heard that sound - "Dum dum de dum dum dum ..." - and I knew I had no choice.

The tune was still playing in my head as our bus left the outskirts of Strasbourg and headed through the sunny valleys of the Alsace wine region, dotted with delightful villages (and a few very ugly towns), neat rows of grapevines and the occasional castle.

After a time, way off in the distance, a dark shape loomed. "That," said guide Marianne, "is the Black Forest."

The name, she explained, applies to a forested range of hills rising up to a height of 1500m.

"It was the last area here to be settled because it looked very dark and mysterious. There were stories of ghosts and witches and fierce creatures. People preferred to live down in the valleys."

I can believe that. Even today, when its forests have been cut back by timber companies or farmers in search of extra grazing, it still has a mysterious look.

Marianne reckons wolves are no longer a problem, but lynxes are growing in numbers, huge eagles soar overhead and under the trees, apparently, live giant earthworms 60cm long.

Happily the only wildlife at our first stopping point was a flock of wooden cuckoos. This was the House of Black Forest Clocks, run by Adolf Herr - "Herr means mister," said Marianne, "so he's Mr Mister." - whose family has been making cuckoo clocks since the 1780s.