When I hear the word "waterfall" I think Niagra. I knew it wouldn't be that big, but I imagined hiking through a forest path to find water falling straight down, hundreds of feet, with a strenuous hike up to the top. Imagine my disappointment when I found a path that was pretty much paved, so easy that you could push a stroller up it. Yes, the waterfall was high, but it was more of a series of rocky cascades then an acutal water - "fall".
Nonetheless, it was pretty and we enjoyed our walk in the brisk fall weather. We followed the path up to the top, snapped some pictures, and we were back at the bottom in less than an hour.
Triberg is also home to the largest cookoo clock in the world. We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping for souvaniers and visiting the House of 1,000 Clocks.
On our way back to the car we stopped at a cafe and had some original black forest cake (a must, since we were in the Black Forest of course.)
We decided to embrace the little, half timbered German town and spend the night. This is where it gets interesting, folks....
We drove up a hillside to the recommended Best Western. We hadn't made reservations in advance and unfortunately, they were all booked up. I asked for a recomendation and they suggested the BergHotel Tannenhof. This was a 4 star bed a breakfast, excellent accomodations I was told.
We drove to a secluded spot on the other side of town. We pulled up and and looked around. The building looked nice, with large flower boxes, and advertised a spa and a sauna. Great! Exactly what I was hoping for.
We went to check in and they had rooms available. They were going to give us a suite for the same price as a smaller room. They even had these old fashioned keys. Super cute!
They led us to our room and it was dated. Everything was peach and flower patterns, but the room big in European standards. We accepted the room and started to relax. Only then did we realize how incredibly dirty it was. There were spiders and webs in the corners, the bath had grass and bugs in it, and the towels in the bathroom were as stiff as wrapping paper. There was a heater in the bathroom that made a lot of noise and a smoking smell when it was turned on.
We decided to walk around to find the pool and sauna that were advertised. This place might be salvageable if it had a good hot tub. We found everything in the basement. The pool was dark and freezing. The sauna was a tiny compartment that had a walkman stapled to the side. There was a tanning bed behind a door that we had to ram into to open. To put it over the top, everything was operated by coins!
We decided to go back to our room and watch our tiny TV until dinner. Liar, Liar with Jim Carey was playing...dubbed over in German.
About a half hour later we headed down to the dining room for dinner. We had a three hour window to eat. The host was a short, hairy, middle aged german man. He didn't speak English, so we showed him our room key and he tried to find our table. After searching the room, it was nowhere to be found, so he simply switched the number cards. We ordered a beer and the waiter (who was the same person as our host) said "Schnitzel? Ya, Schnitzel!" and disappeared into the kitchen. I guess we are having schnitzel tonight! The owner of the hotel, who spoke english, came back a few minutes later with an english menu (the only one they had) and I changed my order to a schnitzel with cream sauce.
While we were waiting I happened to look down at the table cloth. It was dirty, with food stains on it, and you could see the ring of the plates creased into it. Maybe they just didn't clean up from lunch. The centerpiece was an arrangement of fake flowers that looked like they hadn't been dusted in a decade or two. When our beer came my glass had hair along the outside of it. I wiped it off, disgusted, but drank it anyway. Our food came a few minutes later, and thankfully it was in good shape. Ben ordered a second beer and when it arrived he started drinking it. After he took a few sips I realized there was something brown stuck to the bottom of his glass. This time it was inside and with every drink Ben took, little pieces broke off the side of the glass and started floating to the top. It didn't take long before we were completely grossed out. We nixed the beer, paid our bill, and bolted out the door. After a dinner like that we needed some real drinks.
We drove to the main street of town and parked in a lot. After putting 3 euro into the parking ticket maching, a local woman was kind enough to tell us that parking was free after dark. I heard a few snickers from the group beside us. Well, looks like we are able to park here until 3pm the next day! We found a nearby bar and claimed the first two open stools. I was a little uncomfortable at first because we sat between a couple and an old man who were having a conversation, but after my second drink I felt much more relaxed. We spent the night talking to the couple next to us, and I tried my german out on the old man. He had no idea what I was saying and I had no idea what he was saying. Every few minutes he would try to tell me a story and I would look in my German-English dictionary, give him a confused look and a smile. The bartender would come over and translate then run off to deliver more beer to her customers. This pattern continued for the next few hours until he finally went home.
We followed suite shortly after. I tried my best to sleep, but couldn't help to think about the creepy crawlers that were probably all over the place in the dark. We woke up early and went to breakfast. It was buffet style with meet, cheese, bread, cereal with sunflower seeds, and hard boiled eggs. It was in the same room....with the same stained table cloth.
We ate quickly, checked out, and headed to Baden-Baden (which was the only think that saved the weekend.) I don't think we'll be staying at another bed and breakfast for a very, VERY long time.
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