101 Treiburg and Tittesee

Tuesday 6th December.

It is a bit of a miserable day again today, but we are off to see some of the countryside and small towns that are in this area.  We came across this fabulous clock right beside a cuckoo clock shop and decided to go in and have a look.

I need a really big garden for this one!

It was just lovely, they sold all sorts of other souvenirs as well, but the clocks were my thing and the noise was great.

I am fascinated by cuckoo clocks and have already got one at home from our previous travels over here.  I had great difficulty justifying getting anymore, but I could have bought about 6,  one for every room of a house I don't have. 
We were on our way to Tittesee and our path took us up into the mountains and before long, the rain had turned to snow.  The main roads were cleared by snow ploughs as soon as it started and we had no trouble getting through.

This is a ski jump run, can you imagine standing up there waiting to jump.  The view is quite spectacular though.

Looking down from the top of the hill, there is no snow in the valley.

We stopped off in a lovely little town called Treiburg and I dragged Ray around a few more shops.  We decided that we would stop here on our way back so that we could see the place all lit up with it's christmas lights and have dinner.

Tittesee was not quite as I remembered it, we had seen it on our last travels and it was sunny and everyone was out in the street sitting in cafes.  Today, everyone was under cover and the snow was falling heavily.

Christmas card material or what?

Who needs snowmen?

A tad more shopping and then we found our lovely little bar that we had discovered on our last trip and warmed up with a gluwein.  We are both getting a bit partial to the stuff.

Ray's interest perked up when he saw this, it is about 4 foot high, that is one big mantle piece.

It was dark when we started heading back and apart from a couple of lorries who had got stuck going up hill, the traffic moved reasonably well, the snow was still falling quite heavily, but by the time we got back down into Treiburg, it was only a light flurry.  We parked up and the place is just beautiful with all the lights. I feel like a kid again at Christmas.

I would hate to be paying the electricity bill, but it is beautiful.

We saw a sign for the highest waterfall in Germany and off we hiked up hill to see it.  It was quite pretty and there was a lot of water coming down from it.

The highest waterfall in Germany.

We saw a lovely restaurant and when we were inside it was decorated fabulously, the waiters were all wearing Santa hats and there was a party going on in a back room, with the oldest guys I've seen in a long while, playing an accordian and guitars and groaning away to some local german folk songs.  They really enjoy themselves and know how to party without getting all stupid, well at least this is what we have seen.  Everyone has been really friendly and our broken german is getting slightly better. Our meal was quite nice and I rounded it off with a Schnaps, it was a cherry flavour, but it burned all the way down.

I think the waiter had been on the Schnaps!

Two of our dinner companions.

Just part of the decorations.

We headed back to the hotel and it was back to the rain, not a drop of snow had fallen here.
We are hoping the rain holds off so we can go for a walk through the forest tomorrow.