Just as in France the wheat fields are alive with the vibrant red of poppies and it's quite interesting to know that the farmers in these regions consider the poppies in the same way that we consider weeds.
The route to the black forest takes us north through Bern, past Basel and toward Mulhouse
Once past the cities the country side changes radically to that of deep gorges. (see right).
However, once past the seemingly endless ravinves of green the lanscape holds steady on small valleys lined with deep green pine breaking only for the occasional river or chestnut.
To be honest this came as quite a shock as I was expecting the black forest to be pretty much as the name suggests (big ol' forest everywhere with an underlying darkness), but as you can see it is non the less pleasant - just wider.
Throughout the seemingly deserted landscape the are numerous small villages the seem to have developed four or five at a time in close proximity but then nothing for about another twenty miles.
One of the quaintest of these large villages is Titisee. Titisee has the typical architectural look and feel of Germany but being on a water front it has distinct differences.
Having explored to my hearts content (because lets face it you can only take so much architecture and dragon models before you need to crash out/sleep) we found a little place called Todmoos.
Todmoos is a typical, small, catholic village typical to this area. They see a fair number of tourists in the winter months but have the place pretty much to themselves and the monks during the summer.
There are however two places in Todmoos that I would recommend to anyone who's thinking of going there, the Wehranhof hotel (Germany - 07674 92960) and the resturant right next door (not pictured).
The only other place that I have spent time in is Freibourg.
We arrived in Freibourg quite coincidentally at the exact time that everyone was dressing up like demons in some kind of mass German hysteria/ demon cult.
Demon cults aside it was actually an age old celebration of fertility and the starting of the planting season (or trying to entice spring in - or something?).