Saturday 30 September 2017

September Holiday: Black Forest

Zurich was only the first part of our fortnight off in September. After a brief stop at O.K.'s home, we packed our bags again and set off for the Black Forest on Sunday afternoon.
Where we went is actually not that far away from O.K.'s; if all goes well, it takes about 2 hours. But it took longer than that, as there was a long detour due to roadworks. We were later told that there had been a landslide on one of the narrow roads through the forest, and that was what the builders were fixing.

Our hotel was more or less in the middle of nowhere. There is a German term for remote places like that: "Wo sich Fuchs und Hase Gutenacht sagen", where fox and hare say good-night to each other. It's not even a hamlet, let alone a village: just a few buildings (the hotel, a horse stable, one other house, a barn and a chapel), and there is no mobile phone reception. At the hotel, there is no WiFi for the guests, and there are no TV sets on the rooms.

But there are horses, pigs and cows (on the fields, not in the rooms!), there are birds and other woodland animals, and there is of course the forest.

Our hotel:



Our room:


I am not too keen on leather furniture and therefore could have done without the leather headboard, and the shelves at the sides were a little impractical, but overall we liked our room; it was clean and cosy, and we had our own part of the balcony:
 


Walking around the building, you can see where our room is - at the far end of the geraniums on the balcony:
 

The neighbourhood:



Looking  at the hotel from further away:

View of the valley we drove through to get to the hotel. Off the main road, a narrow lane leads about 5 km along the valley, which opens up towards the end - and this is where someone at some stage decided to build a hotel.

10 comments:

  1. Well this is just about the most charming hotel I've ever seen and I don't think I'd ever want to check out.

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    1. It was very cosy, Jill. Some people who spend Christmas and New Year's Eve there return every year, we were told. I imagine it must be even more cosy then, all covered in snow outside!

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  2. Wow what a great looking hotel! I would love to stay in such a pretty place.

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    1. It was pretty, Jennifer; picking up on the rustic charm you expect in the Black Forest without overdoing it.

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  3. Knowing you like your nature walks, it looks like a lovely place for a holiday.

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  4. For a split second I wondered if you had stayed in the same hotel as we did back in the '80s because the remote location sounded identical. However when I saw the hotel it was much bigger and more modern and not as enclosed by trees.

    And that's me up to date at last!

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    1. Maybe it was the same hotel, Graham. There was one before at the same place, but for some reason (not sure whether it was a fire) it had to be rebuilt in the 1990s.

      Thank you for taking the time to go through so many of my posts!

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