Isle of Mainau or The Island of Flowers

After the GPS found our hotel nicely, and found us a quiet, empty, Italian restaurant, we all squished into our dreisbettezimmer (3-bed-room; no, not 3 bedroom, but our 3 bed room) the four of us and read the rest of the night.

In the morning when our plans changed from 'walk to catch the ferry' to 'drive to the next town and catch the auto ferry' I started to get nervous again. My questions to the poor innkeeper, who happened to speak English: An auto ferry? Is this complicated? Will I understand the signs? Where do I find it? Does it cost a lot? (coincidentally, I was short on cash) How will I get to the island after I get off the ferry? and on and on. But as you can see, the GPS actually had the auto ferry in it... and we found it just fine, and it was only 10 euro, and it was easy!

The Island was so fun with a petting zoo...


And really cool flower statues...

And of course, the Spielplatz that's always SOOOO edgy. Careful! You might get wet!


I'll give you one guess which kid wound up waist-deep in this water??


But the Germans think of everything and there was a clothes dryer nearby just for such accidents. I got to spend some quality time together with Alex while we waited for his pants, socks and shoes to dry.

{Alex, looking of my shoulder at this post nervously asked: "Um, who are you sending that to?" Me: "Oh, just Nana. Is that okay?" Alex: "Yea, that's ok, but don't write anymore."... Does this make me a bad mom? I'm pretty sure he'll laugh at this too when he's 37, right?}

It was a great couple days just me and the kids (and the GPS).

Affenberg-Salem

I was supposed to be making this trip with my girlfriend (who has lived in Germany almost 10 years and speaks and understands the language almost fluently). My original idea was to hop aboard a USO trip out here, paying someone else to drive, lead, read, speak, and help. My friend's idea was to bag the USO trip, do it ourselves, tack on a hotel night stay and head to the nearby island of Mainau the following day. WHAT a great idea! So she planned it all.

And her daughter had the nerve to catch Alex's illness and ear infection. First we postponed one day and then determined that they wouldn't make it at all. Ugh. Alllriiighht. I guess I'll just have to do this myself! (Where are we going again??)

So we headed out on a road trip, sans husband and sans German-speaking girlfriend, only me, the troop leader, and the trusted (lifesaving, awesome) GPS. After spending the first 15 minutes in almost constant worry (not really sure where we were going, didn't have an address, just heading to the town hoping for signs) I actually found the place easily.

In the little town of Salem near Lake Constance (the Bodensee) - the largest lake in Europe- is a preserve for Barbary Macaques. We walked the trail feeding the monkeys from our hands everybody's favorite treat: popcorn. This was pretty cool.





And Alex pointed out: "Remember that game Nana sent us called 'The Stork's Nest'?" Here there were many storks who had built their nests perched on the top of the roof.

Afterward, we spent the rest of the afternoon at the ever-present Spielplatz (playplace) while I read my book-you-can't-put-down-except-that-it-weighs-80lbs, Pillars of the Earth. Not so bad to go sans husband or friend... I got read in the sun for about 2 hours while the kids played. This trip was starting to look up.

Schwarzwald Vogtsbauernhofe

We spent the day at an "open-air" museum in Gutach. Different houses and structures built in the 16th and 17th century have been moved to this museum for a walking tour of how people of the Black Forest lived at that time.

Evelyn and Alex in the outhouse...

A typical house, built into the side of a hill, included the stables for work horses or oxen in the house (pee-eww!).

We learned how the mill worked, the how the women baked bread in the baking oven, separate from the houses, and the blacksmith's shop along with many other historical houses and working buildings.

We have learned the secret to the European picnic lunch: whole fruit taken from the hotel at breakfast, paired with fresh bread from the bakery across the street (there's always a bakery across the street). And a playground:

After lunch we realized the Germans certainly got something right when they thought of the Biergarten: an outdoor picnic area that serves beer built beside a playground. This is ingenious.

After the biergarten, we headed to the Rodelbahn, an alpine slide that was fast and fun! Here's me and Evelyn as we went down "Schnell! Schnell!" (fast, fast!)

Triberg, DE

The World's Largest Cuckoo Clock in Schonach, DE. See me, the kids and the dog below.



Do you like Evelyn's expression? She dressed for the trip - dress, tights, and cute little shoes. They are posing in front of the pendulum.



Then we drove on to Triberg and hiked to Germay's highest waterfalls. A beautiful hike, right from the middle of town.



Alex is grumpy because he could stay and throw things in the water and build dams, and float sticks until he was 10. He didn't want to leave. But we're staying down the street so I promised I'd take him back.

Then we headed out to dinner. One of these days I'll figure out how to order German food. I made the mistake of getting the "Farmer's Plate" which the waitress said had local sausage. Ok, I'll try the regional dish, I thought. I got a wooden plate with smoked bacon, proscuitto, sausage, more sausage, ham, more ham, liverwurst, and on the side: butter. To go with the meat, I guess. This is basically what I may have loved to eat were I an outlaw living in the forest in 1350 and using my pocket knife to slice smoked bacon to eat with my butter. Yum. (not). Fortunately, I have a husband who orders a salat wherever he goes (to the dismay of the German waitresses) and a dog who really loves meat. My 11 euro plate basically went to feed Sequoia... who gave her compliments to the chef.