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Germany’s Black Forest

More than wicked witches and cuckoo clocks
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I woke to the sound of distant church bells mingled with an early morning chorus of bird songs. The previous day's interminable delay in a stuffy St. Petersburg waiting room and the cramped flight to Frankfurt were like memories of a bad dream. Opening the window wide I took a deep breath of the cool, pine-scented air and looked out into the forest. At the edge of the clearing three deer, a buck and two does browsed on low-hanging branches, oblivious to the human presence around them. Except for the church bells chiming out the hour and the unfamiliar melody of the bird songs, it could have been a scene from almost any small B.C. town. But this was southern Germany, in the very heart of continental Europe.

It was our first morning in Bad Herrenalb where we interrupted our trip home from Russia to visit our friends Mary and Geri. Before returning to Europe to teach at Karlsruhe University, Geri worked as a geologist in the mountains of B.C. and Mary, a geography Prof. at Simon Fraser, was a keen backcountry hiker and camper. Like Betty and I they are mountain people and, after many years of teaching they chose the little town of Bad Herrenalb in Germany's Black Forest as the place to build their retirement home.

By Whistler standards, the Black Forest would be classed as hilly rather than mountainous. Even Feldberg, at 1,493 metres its highest mountain, is little more than a wooded dome rising modestly above the general level of the range. But what it lacks in double-diamond vertical the Black Forest more than makes up for in its harmonious blend of charming old world villages and tracts of wilderness. Laced with more than 23,000 km of trails it is a Mecca for hikers, bikers and cross-country skiers who have an infinite choice of routes between countless local inns and pubs. And while the runs are modest the Black Forest boasts more than 200 ski lifts. Depending on who you talk to its history of winter sports goes back to the very beginning of downhill skiing. According to our local guidebook, an enterprising Frenchman strapped on the very first pair of downhill skis and slid down the slopes of Feldberg in 1891.

Although Geri has retired from active teaching he continues to pursue his research with a passion that would exhaust most men half his age. He has a book in the works and endless stories about the Rhine Valley. Following him around for three days was a crash course in the local geology and history combined with a stiff physical workout and some excellent food. "The venison is great," he tells us as we pull in to one of his favourite restaurants, order a beer, and settle down for another of Geri's tales about the Black Forest.

Between the Black Forest and the Vosges Mountains of France the Rhine River flows across a broad, low-lying plain, the Rhine Graben, where the earth's crust was stretched and thinned during the formation of the Alps. Volcanic activity and high heat-flow have left a legacy of thermal springs for which the region is famous. Roman emperor, Caracalla (211-217 AD) was among the first to seek relief for his arthritis in the healing waters of Baden-Baden. Since then the spas of this Black Forest resort have catered to the aches and pains of the world's rich and famous while luring them and their wealth into its glittering casinos. "We'll go there after lunch," Geri tells us as he picks up another thread of his story.

When Emperor Caracalla visited the area back in the third century AD, the Black Forest truly was a dark and foreboding place. Described by the Romans as impenetrable woodland, its giant firs and pines filtered out the sun and a host of mythical beings were said to inhabit the dimly lit forest floor. But wicked witches and forest gnomes were no match for woodcutters armed with iron and later steel axes. By the late Middle Ages much of the Black Forest had been reduced to stumps. The best logs were floated down the Rhine to the Netherlands and milled into lumber; others were converted to charcoal and used to smelt iron and tin or to fuel the furnaces of glass factories. The local economy prospered until the trees were gone, and then it collapsed. By the 17 th century people had begun to abandon their impoverished communities and the Black Forest, stripped of its trees, slipped into a long period of economic decline. But nature recovers, and in many ways the Black Forest of today is more inviting and prosperous than it ever was in the past.

On our way to Baden-Baden we stopped at a partially restored medieval fortress and climbed up its central turret for a sweeping view, west across the Upper Rhine valley and east into the hills of the Black Forest. The dark coniferous forest that once blanketed the entire area now shares the hills with secluded meadows and leafy stands of beech, oak, and birch. The valleys, no longer shadowy hiding places for witches and goblins, have blossomed into farms, vineyards, and tiny villages surrounded by carefully manicured gardens. Selective logging is still practised in parts of the Black Forest but a vigorous environmental protection policy ensures that the natural environment is secure. Reforestation is ongoing and much of the harvested wood is used locally by cottage industries that create the carvings and clocks for which the area is famous. But the economic lifeblood of the Black Forest is now tourism.

On the outskirts of Baden-Baden the road plunges into a well-lit tunnel. "It's part of the plan to keep traffic off the streets," Geri explains. In order to preserve its picturesque, old-world look Baden-Baden, like many other Black Forest towns and villages, routes ongoing traffic under rather than through its central core. The tourist value of its quaint, fairytale villages has not been lost on Germany's town planners.

Back in Bad Herrenalb the three deer are bedded down in the grass not far from a cluster of small trees that look suspiciously like Canadian maples. "I planted them as a reminder of home," Mary explains as she brings a jug of cold German brew out to the deck.

"Do you miss the West Coast," I asked her.

"Sometimes I miss the real mountains," she admits. "But it would be hard to beat this as a place to retire."

And I couldn't agree more.

Behind their house a footpath leads into the forest and branches into a maze of secluded trails, each beckoning to be explored. Nestled into the valley below, the village with its leafy gardens, tumbling brooks and quaint footbridges is right out of a Grimm's fairy tale.

In the morning Geri drove us to the train station in Karlsruhe for the next leg of our journey home. It's only an hour's trip on the fast train from there to Frankfurt, an easy commute for Black Forest folk who work in the city. But as we made our way through the airport maze, the house that Mary and Geri built in Bad Herrenalb seemed as distant from the crowds and confusion of Frankfurt as our own cabin in far away Whistler.