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Nutrition: |
Fruit salad and yoghurt, and bread rolls and jam for breakfast;
two excellent rolls for lunch; soup, liver, apple and sauteed
potatoes, and strawberries and cream for dinner.
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Journal: |
I went to bed early, there being no TV or wi-fi, and had a long
sleep before a 7:30am breakfast and 8:15am departure. For a
change, I was one of the first hikers to leave and, as I did, I said
goodbye to the groups I had seen regularly for the past two days.
There had been more thunderstorms over night and some rain, but now
it was mostly sunny again.
As yesterday, the path alternated
between farmland and forest all morning with view near and far.
It was mostly easy walking although the path did climb up to near
1200m in the late morning. Some of the farms I have seen
through the Black Forest, including this morning, are heavily into
renewable energy with huge banks of solar panels covering their
roofs and often a private wind generator as well. I believe
the "feed in" tariffs are quite generous in Germany, so many of them
are probably making money from their investment. The other
thing that has struck me about Black Forest farms is how huge the
combined farmhouse/barns are. I haven't had an opportunity to
look inside, but one suspects the whole dairy herd can be kept in
there all winter, along with all the farm machinery, fodder and
family.
My loose schedule only had me walking 20km today to
Titisee, a holiday resort and the point at which I leave Westweg.
However, given my early start and the relatively easy walking, I
decided to get to Titisee for a late lunch and then go a little
further in the afternoon. As I descended to Titisee (850m), I
encountered a small faux train doing a tour of the country lanes
above the resort, complete with several carriages populated with
tourists, and a golf course. All a bit incongruous after the
last week.
Titisee itself has a very pretty location at the
end of a sizeable lake surrounded by wooded mountains, but is
primarily a tourist trap with lots of cuckoo clock stores and other
tourist take-homes. Bus loads of tourists walked around behind
guides carrying small flags and every kind of small boat imaginable
was for rent at the lake front. I did, however, find a shop
which sold excellent filled half-baguettes and I bought two and took
them down to a bench on the lake shore and watched the fun.
After replenishing my chocolate, Diet Coke and biscuit supplies, I
left Titisee and the Westweg and joined the Querweg which I will
follow to Konstanz. I believe Querweg translates as Queer Way
and is so-called because, unlike the other main Black Forest trails
which run north-south, Querweg runs east-west.
Fuelled by my
baguettes, I tackled the 350m climb in about 4km that followed
Titisee. It was hard work, but mostly in the cool of the
forest and I was rewarded with an excellent view back down to
Titisee from near the top. From there, the trail followed a
broad ridge eastwards for a number of kilometres through quiet
forest before steeply descending through farmland to the picturesque
Lenzkirch-Kappel where I found a guesthouse for the night. It
had been quite a long day, but interesting, with a bit of
everything.
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