The Black Forest, cuckoo clocks and our last day.

Today we got up early to make sure we made it onto our 8:30 am excursion to the Black Forest. We docked in Breisach around 8 and the buses arrived around 8:15.

We were driven up through a bit of the German Wine Country on the way up into the mountains. The little towns were beautiful, and one of them happened to be the German town that reaches the highest temperature in the country- Ihringen. After a brief stint on the Autobahn, we continued climbing until we reached Sankt Peter- a beautiful small town at the top. We only had about half an hour here, so we climbed up to the baroque church of St. Peter. You enter through a beautiful courtyard, and then upon entering the church you are overwhelmed with how stunning the interior is. The walls are pure white, and the amount of gold accents is amazing. From a pure aesthetic point of view, this was the most beautiful interior we saw of all of the cathedrals we visited on our trip- and we saw many!

I wish we would have had more time here, but we took off for Hofgut Sternen, which in the end was a bit of a tourist trap. It was made clear that the shops in Breisach were going to be closed in the afternoon, so this was the place to shop. There were glass-blowing demonstrations as well as a lecture on cuckoo clocks. That was it. With the exception of a couple of hotels (one was a Best Western) and a café were you could get Black Forest cake. We tried it but it was pretty bad- not my taste. It might be better in another restaurant though! I felt like I was in Lake Tahoe.

We came back to the boat and packed up as much as we could since we need to head out at 4:15 am. After we finished, we spent some time exploring Breisach, which is also another beautiful town with St. Stephan’s Cathedral being a focal point from all over town.

I can’t believe the trip is over, but it’s time to get home and get back in the groove again. Hopefully everything will go well with the flight tomorrow and the luggage makes it okay. We’ve discussed coming back next year as Mama really enjoyed this trip. I don’t know if we’ll come over for as long as we did this year, but we’ll definitely be back for another river cruise together.