wherein our narrator eats black forest cake in the Black Forest

We got off to a bit later of a start today and headed into Triberg, in the Black Forest. We checked out the waterfalls, at least at the lower heights. We could buy peanuts to feed the local squirrels, but there weren't any squirrels to be seen so SIL had to content herself with just tossing peanuts into the woods, where hopefully they'll be found by squirrels at some later point in time.

Then we visited the House of 1,000 Clocks. We made a few Rob Zombie movie jokes going in, and it actually was a little scary. In the entryway, there was an animatronic figure intoning "I am the Black Forest clockmaker" in an unnerving monotone. I'm not sure if there were a thousand clocks, exactly, but there were a great many of them, ranging from plastic cuckoo clocks mostly made in China but assembled in Germany (and thus capable of bearing the words "made in Germany" on the clockface) to more minimalist clocks. From there we went to an actual clockmaker's shop, which in addition to cuckoo clocks had all sorts of carvings: nativity sets, boxes, Christmas ornaments, little carved animals and dwarves, all sorts of things. The clocks were seriously impressive. Alas, with the cats, we are not able to have nice things like cuckoo clocks, even if I do have one that my grandmother left me.

We had lunch at a local pizza place that did an excellent pepperoni pizza, which I had with a Ketterer pils, which was lovely. Then we ambled down the street, poking in and out of shops before arriving at a bakery/tea house. st_darwin and SIL had the strawberry cheesecake, but I figured there was no way I could visit the Black Forest and not have a slice of Black Forest cake, so that's what I had, along with a cup of Earl Grey tea.

We went back to the house, and packed up (we're leaving Germany tomorrow) and then went out for Italian food and gelato. Our flight isn't until the evening, so we'll probably hit downtown Stuttgart for some sightseeing and shopping in the morning/early afternoon.

It's hard to say what my favourite thing about this trip has been. I've had such a great time! My one regret is that we never got to eat at the infamous Chinese restaurant that serves "hot cock." (That's what the English menu says. I've seen photos.)