Triberg, Germany

Triberg (treeberg) was one of my favorite places to visit the whole trip. My nature-soaking-in-experience was on overload again :) I'd wanted to visit there because one, the guidebook said it would be good, and there was a hike along a seven tiered waterfall, The House of 1000 Clocks and one of the worlds largest cuckoo clocks all within walking distance of each other. Also the guide book said that the worlds best (practically) Black Forest Cake was also to be found there. Sadly, I did not get to experience the latter because said bakery was closed on Wednesdays and I just happened to be there on a Wednesday. Ah well. I ate at a little sandwich place and got another apple strudel. Man they're so tastey! Every place I went I had to ask, "Do you speak English?" Thankfully most people did.

The hike was SO gorgeous! I did the whole thing, it was only about a mile to the top and back but it was STEEP. I felt like I was hiking the Y again! I took breaks to catch some pictures and my breath :) But it was beautiful. The weather was still rainy and wet and being near a waterfall didn't help. But the mist was mesmerizing and I was just so at peace up there. I loved it. The hike took about 2 hours because I was slow but it wasn't a race. I wanted to enjoy as much as I could. After I got finished with the hike I went and explored The House of 1000 Clocks. It was so cool in there! I even got us a clock! It's just a wee one but it's made out of a light colored wood and has leaves and a bird carved into it. The people there were super friendly and didn't really care that I circled the store about 5 times just looking at all the clocks :) After visiting there I went and saw the world's (one of them, there are two) largest cuckoo clocks. I arrived just in time, at the top of the hour to see it chime. It was raining pretty hard at that point so I didn't stick around too much longer after that.

Another fun part about this day was that I got to drive. I drove in Germany. By myself! And I drove fast! I got the rental car up to 175kmh which is about 110mph. Not terribly fast but it was enough to set my adrenaline pumping. I usually limit my speeding to about 10-15 over the posted limit. But the thing about German highways, there's no. posted. limit. What was interesting was that even at that top speed I was going, I still had Audi's and BMW's passing me. Nuts! And the experience of slowing down from 110mph to 75 was also an interesting one. I was coming onto traffic so I had to kind of had to lay on the brake pretty hard. I had never experienced a "rush" of adrenaline until then. It felt like a surge of "BAM!!" from my heart to my brain. I felt like my old eyes rolled into the back of my head and I had new, cat-like-instinct eyes come out. It was crazy! My body tensed up and I was ready to swerve at a moments notice if I had to. And all of this I felt come and go in a matter of seconds. It was like, Move over Bond! Here I come! :) It was a weird feeling. :)

Here are the pictures!

The Red Squirrel. You could buy a bag of peanuts for a few euro and feed them. They were really cute.

One of the world's largest cuckoo clocks - it's just about to go!

Our clock - from The House of 1000 Clocks :)

Meersburg, Germany

Meersburg was a town that was about a 30 minute bus ride outside of Uberlingin. I had the bus drop me off right at one of the two castles in the little town. It was a fun place - there was lots of little shops around the castle, skinny roads with lots of flowers and cobblestones. The food smelled delicious there. I had me an apple streudle (sp?) and a pretzel. I visited the castle and a small Zepplin museum. The castle was really neat. I thought it was so cool that I was in a real castle. Something right out of the history books. I tried to take as much of it in as I could. Sometimes its hard to appreciate things in the moment but I tried. Anything I could touch or feel I did so that I could tangibly remember the experience. The castle was pretty big so I took lots of pictures. I can't post them all so I just did some of my favorites of the inside and the outside surrounding flowers.
 

The well room. This used to be the entrance of the castle. On the tour we came through another way.

I loved this room. I thought the differing suits of armor and the weapons were really cool to see.

There was indoor plumbing :)

A view of part of one of two kitchens

The dungeon! You, as a criminal, would be lowered into the dungeon by a rope and there you would stay. (there was a staircase in the same room but I think for affect they didn't use it back then)

A staircase to nothing

How deep the foundation of the castle goes. This was one of the towers.

A pretty view of the top of the castle

Color seemed so vibrant to me out there. I wonder if its because I live in a desert...but when I looked at all the pretty flowers and the green grass and the big tall trees, it was like I was experiencing nature for the first time. I felt like my eyes wanted to just soak it all up and couldn't do it fast enough.