Starting to Catch Up

Here I am, back at my own place after two weeks. I have arrived here at around 3:30 pm, and now, while the washing machine is doing its work, I use this time to begin with my catching up posts. 

We have had two good weeks, one of which we spent at a remote hotel in the Black Forest with no mobile signal and no WiFi. The weather was great with just one rainy morning, which did not stop us from enjoying the area.

But more about our time away later; let's now go back to the first week of my holiday. Towards the end of my previous post I mentioned that we went walking on the Friday, and this is the post about that walk on the 6th of May.

O.K.'s sister had given him a booklet with suggestions for walks and hikes in the area, and we chose a circuit starting and ending at the small town of Oberkirch, about half an hour's drive from the village. It included a viewing tower - always attractive for us.

The day was a mix of clouds and sun, but it remained dry throughout and was warm enough for us to end the walk having ice creams in town.

Sign on a bench. Something about its old-fashionedness made me want to take a picture of it. Schwarzwald means Black Forest, and Verein is Club or Association.

The tower is called Geigerskopfturm, and it is painted in rainbow colours - I'm afraid you will have to take my word for it, as the lighting was less than ideal when I took this picture:

Of course there are many pictures of this tower on the internet, much better than mine, for instance here.

View from the top of the tower:

And the view down to the shelter and picnic area below:

The woods are beautiful this time of year, and even the Black Forest is anything but black right now:

At one point towards the end of the circuit, we arrived at a hut set up by the owners of a nearby farm (Dilgerhof - "Hof" meaning farm, Dilger being their family name). It is not unusual in this part of the Black Forest to come across self-service points where drinks and sometimes even snacks can be purchased, but this hut or shed was exceptionally well equipped, offering not only the usual array of soft drinks and beer, but also a selection of Schnaps (the area is full of small private distilleries - almost every farm or large house has one), sweet and savoury snacks and even cake.

We were fine, though, and did not need anything, only had a good look around.

The entire circuit was under 10 km with almost all its up and downhill bits being very moderate. We enjoyed our ice creams in the beautiful town center of Oberkirch before driving back to O.K.'s village.

The next day, Saturday, mostly consisted of preparations for our week away. In the morning, we went to buy this year's plants for the old stone troughs in front of O.K.'s cottage, and O.K. planted them the same day. This is what they looked like, seen top down from the balcony:

On Sunday around lunch time, we left the cottage for our destination about 130 km away, further south and much higher up - and deeper at the same time - in the Black Forest. I will start with my posts about the days there hopefully tomorrow, but it is also my first day back at work and so I am not yet sure how much time I will have for blogging.