Thursday 20th April

What a difference a night makes, the sun woke me up creeping around the edges of the blinds. Shorts and T-shirt weather until I get outside and realise it is rather more chilly than I was hoping for.

Our plan had been to follow the Rhine north hoping that it would be warmer (lower altitude) but since the skies were clear we headed back into the Black Forest. This is the main road, dual carriageway for most of the way but at this point the downhillers only get a single lane. It’s very steep, we’re just about to go round the large rock with the cross on the top and then loop back onto the high road on the right. To be honest, I’m not sure if that is a speed limit or a target, it is only for lorries though.

Getting higher, huge green pastures…

…and lots of trees (and snow).

And then you can’t get any higher. The views are like this in every direction, it really is lovely up here.

We were aiming for a town called Furtwangen, home of the Cuckoo Clock Museum. You name a timepiece and it was here. Roman sundials, huge wooden structures such as this one where it isn’t even obvious that it is a clock.

Grandfather clocks of all shapes and sizes…

…and locally made wooden clocks from the 1700’s.

Clocks in different styles from around the globe…

…and of course the Cuckoo clock. Possibly first made in 1730, they originally looked similar to the clocks in the previous photo. It wasn’t until 1850 when Robert Gerwig from Furtwangen entered a competition for a contemporary clock design. He based his clock on a railway signalman’s house (hence the roof) and within 10 years it had developed into the three dimensional, highly decorated designs we see today.

This is one of three huge clocks which travelled around the country displaying the time in different cities throughout the world. All the figures move on the quarters.

Here is a display of kitchen clocks…

…and here one of the first atomic clocks. The small box in the front is a later design for the sensing unit.

Most of the signage was in German but you are supplied with a book which gives you translations of the displays. also there are lots of trifold information leaflets in English which I picked up along the way and had a good read of once we got back to Frankie.

The exhibition was fantastic and I’ve only picked out some of the photos, bits I’ve missed out were pocket watches, wrist watches, quartz clocks, marine chronometers, explanations of world time, days of the week, railway time, watchmaking equipment, astronomical clocks, fashion trends, Japanese clocks (time units change in length at different times of the day and year) and precision regulators (pendulum clocks precise to 1/100th of a second a day). Highly recommend you visit and allow a couple of hours to get round.

Clive Brooker, where are you, we’re looking forward to you telling us how warm it is in Spain. This was our lunchtime stop, ski lift in the background, but it was chilly and early, so we moved on, hoping to find somewhere lower and warmer.

On the way we found the Hochste Wasserfall at Triberg. This is the highest waterfall in Germany with the water cascading down 160m. The paths were steep, there was snow on the ground, but the sun was out and it was so pretty.

Little Black Squirrel, very fast and hard to photo.

There are 13 cascades in all…

… some were more blurry than others (or is that artistic licence?).

Down and up, 160m each way gave us a good workout, should sleep well tonight.

We were going to pass through Triberg but the main street looked interesting and since it had two stellplatz we’ve decided to stay here the night. This was the first one we found, not seen anything like it before. These four bays are dedicated to motorhomes, we tried one but as I reversed in the temperature dropped like a stone and we had to move out. We are now parked overlooking that stellplatz in a bus terminus, again in a dedicated motorhome spot. It’s now 9pm, everything is silent, we haven’t seen a bus since 6pm – hopefully they don’t start up too early in the morning.