Black Forest Hike

Monday, the 2nd of October, was a day off for me and O.K. (see the last paragraph of my next-to-last post). As had been forecast, it was a beautiful day of wall to wall sunshine and azure blue skies. What better to do on a day like this than go for a hike?

We often walk into the woods just behind the village, but this time, we followed the suggestion in one of our booklets and drove 20 minutes or so to the village of Oberentersbach. From a parking lot at the edge of the woods, we started on a circular walk which was equally beautiful and exhausting (to me) - at least about a third of it, with a rather long and sometimes steep uphill stretch.

The main attraction of the walk was a rocky outcrop called Katzenstein ("cats rock"). I don't know what the association with cats is; the rocks are not shaped like a cat or anything like that, but it was a good place to sit on a bench and eat our sandwiches and enjoy the view.

Stopping for breath on the long uphill stretch

Katzenstein

view from Katzenstein

The "main" rock looked so inviting - it seemed to doze in the autumn sunshine like a big animal (a cat?), and I imagined it to be warm and relatively smooth to the touch. Of course I had to climb it, but to my surprise, it was cooler than expected (not cold or uncomfortable) and as rough as a cat's tongue. Still, it made for one of those precious moments in life when everything comes together and you want to stop time for a while.

Leaving the Katzenstein on its other side, the steep climb down needed some careful navigation, but it was not too difficult.

Out of the woods, the view was wide and very green - not at all October-like.

There was a small pavilion to have a rest and enjoy the view, but we walked on to follow the signpost to a chapel.

The chapel - sorry, I forgot its name:

Another hour or so of easy walking brought us back to the car. We changed from our hiking boots into our trainers and had a better look at the pond next to the parking lot. It was a tranquil place - but certainly is not always so, as there is a good-sized children's playground on one side. On a beautiful day like this, you'd have expected it to be popular with families, but there was nobody on the playground.

On our way home, we stopped in the small town of Zell am Harmersbach for an ice cream and a stroll in the picturesque town centre.

Back at O.K.'s cottage, we freshened up a little and changed out of our hiking clothes into jeans and jumpers and took a bus into Offenburg (the city is only a few bus stops from the village), where we had arranged to meet with a group of friends for the wine fest. It was a fun evening with a few glasses of wine and freshly baked Flammkuchen to go with it, but we were quite ready to take the bus back to the village just after 10 pm.

Good job that the next day was a holiday, and we did not have to get up early!