Day 7: Neuschwanstein to Baden-Baden

A long day ahead of us and for me a memory lane since I lived 2 years in Sonthofen, very close to our first target the ‘Oberjoch’, I learnt skiing in those mountains at the age of 8. The Oberjoch Pass is a mountain pass in the Allgäu Alps just one kilometer west of the Austrian border. It links Bad Hindelang, Schattwald and Jungholz. Between 1938 and 1945 the pass was called "Adolf-Hitler-Pass", a name that we don’t want to remember anymore.

Now we are moving on leaving Bavaria by driving to Lake Constance (known as Bodensee in German) is a 63km-long central European lake that borders Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Fed by the Rhine River, it’s composed of 2 connected parts, the Untersee (lower lake) and the larger Obersee (upper lake). We pass the swiss border where we can almost see our home in

Zürich. We took the detour to visit the Rheinfall to see ‘Kein Rheinfall’ the biggest waterfall in Europe, 150m of sizzeling water, a beautiful view.

Our next target is the Black Forest - a mountainous region in southwest Germany, bordering France. Known for its dense, evergreen forests and picturesque villages, it is often associated with the Brothers Grimm fairy tales. Most tourists know this mountain range for its ham and cuckoo’s clocks.. the worlds largest one can be found in Triberg. A fun ‘todo of the day’ is quite funny: in the old days 2 regions battled who has the largest lake, Titisee won over Schluchsee, so the jealous but innovative Schluchsee crowd ‘stole’ water at night in barrels carried on ox carriages to empty the Titisee. Our mission is to help reverse that by bringing 5l in a basket from Schluchsee to Titisee. We also had to fulfill our weekly task: camping in the wild. We solved this problem by visiting Tatzmania, infront of a real Tiger we enjoyed a Swiss Cheese Fondue, mission accomplished!

We are ending our day in Baden-Baden - a spa town in southwestern Germany’s Black Forest, near the border with France. Its thermal baths led to fame as a fashionable 19th-century resort. Alongside the Oos River, park-lined Lichtentaler Allee is the town’s central promenade. The Kurhaus complex (1824) houses the elegant, Versailles-inspired Spielbank (casino). Its Trinkhalle has a loggia decorated with frescoes and a mineral-water fountain. We felt we need some elegance after the last few days in the forest. The day ended with fulfilling one of our last weekly tasks: 'Herman the German' which we renamed to 'Hermine, die Blondine'.. the idea is to show the ugly side socks, a hat, shorts, sandals, sausage in the hand and a of course.. a cuckoo's clock.. we felt we have to mix that with some 'elegance', we simply could not stop laughing doing the photo :-)