A Walk in the Black Forest (Monday 25th September 2017)

On the day we arrived in St. Margen our host Christian told us about a beautiful walk from the village to its neighboring village, St. Peter. So we were determined to complete it before we left. Today was the day. The weather was even better than yesterday, the sun was shining, the sky was blue and the view to the distant mountain clear. The temperature was around the high teens with a light breeze blowing. Everything was perfect for the 7.5km walk.

The trail started right at the end of our street with a sealed path traversing an open, green field up to the forest. The higher we climbed the better the vista became. The first part of the walk was very hard, climbing about 140m over a kilometre or so. The sealed path gave way to a dirt track as it entered the trees for the first time. It was good to finally reach the cool of the forest and a leveling trail. Onwards we walked into the pines. At one point we reached a fork in the track and took the high road as there was a little sign of a hiker on it. A few hundred metres further on I was beginning to wonder if we should have taken the low road. The pines were becoming more dense and the track looked less like the often-traversed trail I thought it should be.

Coming around a bend we happened upon a woodsman working in the forest. Kerry took a pew on a recently fallen log and I walked up to him, with a small amount of language-induced trepidation, to work out if we were on the right trail. I showed him my imprecise maps and we conversed on poor German and reasonable English. He confirmed what I’d suspected. We should have taken the low road. Kerry was sitting adjacent to a rough track carved out pines. The woodsman indicated that we could take that track and get back on course. So we took his advice and headed into to dark forest. The track was very difficult to walk, being strewn with rocks and invaded by the roots of the pines adjacent to it. I asked Kerry if she had any breadcrumbs handy so we could find our way back if we got lost. She said no. Not a big deal, I’ve heard breadcrumbs aren’t the best thing to use in situations like this. We walked on. Further on we passed a small, dark pond with grasses and ivy growing on the branches that had fallen into it. I didn’t see anything bubbling up from the depths but I imagined something might have. We hurried on. Five minutes further along we could see the light from the open fields creeping into the forest and knew we were almost back on track.

 

 

Right on cue a little chapel appeared on the edge of the forest, just as the woodsman had said it would. We were home safe. These tiny little chapels are all over the place in this and other parts of Germany. They’re in quite remote locations, like this one, or by the side of country lanes standing by them selves. They all have a beautifully adorned altar and five or six rows of pews for the faithful. The larger ones sometimes have a bell tower. The other interesting thing is the number of crucifixes all over the place. There were probably a dozen along the trail and then many more once we’d reached St. Peter. Even on major and secondary roads they just appear all day. Probably the most unexpected thing I’ve learned about the German people is the extent to which Christianity and even Roman Catholicism is embraced. For the whole of my life I have laboured under the misunderstanding that religion and Germany were two unrelated things.My apologies to the German people. Indeed they put we antipodeans to shame on that subject.

 

 

 

 

We walked on through more fields and more woods and the scenery remained stunning. The Vosges Chapel was especially tiny, having only three rows of pews. It’s said that you can see the Vosges mountains in France from here on a clear day, hence the name. The trail transformed into nothing much more that a little worn path through farmers fields, separated from the grazing cattle by little more than a single strand electric fence. All around was quiet. One could clearly hear the sound of distant cow bells coming in on the breeze. The whole environment was just magic, full of all the story-book clichés we learned as children.

 

 

 

Our path was all downhill by now as we got within 2.5kms of St. Peter. With a magnificent view back up the valley to St. Margen, Feldberg (the Black Forest’s highest peak) in the distance and a park bench (there a numerous along the whole route) we stopped for lunch. Lunch consisted of a few different cheeses, cherry tomatoes, salami, cucumber and biscuits. One couldn’t wish for a better place for our little feast.

 

 

 

 

Forty-five minutes later we arrived in St. Peter. The incoming road took us straight to the town square and the magnificent Baroque church. We stopped there for 15 minutes and then headed past the Rathaus to the Gasthof Hirschen where a well-earned beer, coffee and Apple Strudel were enjoyed. Kerry popped into a nearby store and bought herself a patchwork jacket. Down to the bus stop we went to catch the No. 7216 back to St. Margen.

Back at St. Margen we wandered around parts of the village we hadn’t yet seen, including the cemetery adjacent to the church. Unfortunately, the church is closed for major internal restoration. Passing the bakery on the way home we spied the lovely vista from the rear balcony so we plonked down there with a couple of mineral waters just to admire the view. I grabbed some beers from the fridge, Kerry got some other less essential items like milk and yoghurt for breakfast and we headed back to where our journey had started in the morning.