(Visual Break: Autumnal Black Forest)
Having just returned from a short trip to Germany, I thought I would share a little of my luck of having caught a glimpse of the Black Forest in full fall glory. And to keep in the spirit of Daily Kos diaries, I'll toss in a couple of my observations of the ecological state of Germany.
Follow me over the Atlantic to Germany!
When my daughter returned from a six week stay with family and friends in Germany she brought with her an invitation for my wife to her 30th class reunion. Between the pictures and stories of our daughter's travels, and the invitation, my wife developed a touch of homesickness and asked, "Can we go to my class reunion?" She had missed all previous class reunions so I explored the budget and found we could manage a family-stay trip. The calculations were made easier because I love visiting Germany and had a case of travel fever too. So we made sure my wife's brothers and friend could put us up for a few days and set up a trip to Germany. We arranged three days in Speyer, three days in Königsbach, and three days in Bühl.
We arrived in Frankfurt and picked up a rental car which was a Skoda stardard drive (Czech built car with VW engine). Our current vehicles are automatic but I really love to drive standard so I was juiced to be able to jam gears again.
First stop - Speyer. We begin the ecological impact portion of this diary with this picture:
This was a house in a newly developed neighborhood where approximately 5% of the houses had either solar power or solar water panels on them. I asked (in my wholly inadequate German) if Germans get subsidies to install solar panels and the answer was yes and they also get money from the power company when they feed the grid. Throughout our travels I saw a lot of solar installations on new roofs and old. (Where old in Germany can mean houses built before the USA became a nation...)
A view of the Speyer Cathederal for eye candy.
The next stop was in Königsbach to visit my wife's brother. The trip involved about an hour's travel on the Autobahn. For most of the trip I was cooking along at 140 kph (~87 mph). As usual I was being passed by all kinds of vehicles. However I noticed that the number of light-blinking, zooming-by cars was a lot less than years past. So on arriving in Königsbach I struck up a conversation with my brother-in-law over a few beers (my German improves with beer) and he said that people have overall reduced their speed on the Autobahn because they have become far more conscious of their carbon impact on the world and because the price of gas and diesel has gone up so much. With taxes loaded on top of the price of fuel, they pay on the order of $8.54 per gallon for gas (at today's exchange rate). I guess 100 MPH can get pretty expensive at that price. (I don't have any Autobahn pics.)
On the way to Königsbach we stopped in Bruchsal and visited this Schloss which has a cuckoo clock and glockenspiel museum and some amazing beautiful ceiling paintings:
I had never been to visit her brother in Bühl so I googled Bühl in relationship to Königsbach and found that Bühl is located on the Southwest border of the Schwarzwald and Königsbach is located just north of the Schwarzwald. So naturally I planed a route right through the Schwarzwald.
I was totally amazed to find that we arrived at the peak of fall colors. So much beauty! But the drive was also a true challenge for my gear jamming skills. Never in my life have I driven through so many curves and switch-backs! And to top it off, at the highest point we were driving through the thickest fog I've ever driven in. What a blast! However, my narrative ends here because the ecological stuff is done and this diary has run a bit long.
In the interest of not overwhelming anyone's bandwidth I'll limit my Schwarzwald pics to my two favorites and provide a link to the rest on flickr. Feel free to look around at my other pictures if you wish.
Curvy road in fall colors:
Fachwerk Haus (Half-timber house) with church spire:
Wald und Schwarzwald pictures