Visit into the Schwarzwald, Black Forest

Black Forest which isn't really black anymore due to new planting replacing the pine trees.

We went out with Christoph on a rainy Sunday to St. Peter 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbey_of_Saint_Peter_in_the_Black_Forest

St. Peter former Benedictine abbey

St. Margen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankt_Märgen

St. Margen, Maria-Zell Augustinian Abbey 

We saw both churches that were monasteries or abbeys. Here is a website for both www.klosterdoerfer.de  Christoph said they were almost in competition with each other but worked together. St. Peter’s is Rococo and extremely ornate while St. Margen’s is a little less so. Both are beautiful in their own right and worth an afternoon’s visit.   

Traditional German lunch, very tasty, at the (guest house) Gasthof Jaegerhaus in the village of St. Peter im Schwarzwald or Black Forest.

It certainly seems to be a harder way of life up there in the hills than what they experience in the Kaiserstuhl. Long winding narrow roads up and down the mountainsides with fantastic views over the valleys and hills. 

Rainy day, rainy photo but does show the hills, valleys and sheep

Many large stand alone farm houses dot the countryside. These houses hold both livestock and humans making use of all the heat available. There are mapped, marked trails for hikers throughout the hills but many people mountain bike instead now, in the past family groups would all go hiking together. 

Street scape in St. Peter

Horse statue at St. Margen

We have a bird friend for Lexi, same one? Don’t know, but it comes and chirps on the edge of the balcony. Lexi “talks” to it by a strange cackling noise and she stays like this – you can’t see me! While it’s there, usually for some time too, just hopping back and forth. Google says it’s a common blackbird and certainly has a loud chirp!

"Hunting" a bird

We took delivery of our citrus trees this week and they delivered the wrong lemon tree. It looks like a citrus version of a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. We left immediately after delivery and didn't pay much attention. On our return we noticed – hey – this isn’t our tree! Now we need to correct the mistake the garden centre made so I emailed them using Google translate which we know is not accurate but it’s a start. Deliver was Thursday afternoon, not open until Monday. We drove the big bike down Monday morning and the office manager understood the problem. Further investigation did not find our tree but we were told to choose another about the same price. A bit of hassle for all concerned but resolved reasonably and amicably.

Bruce is enjoying cooking again, you’ve heard that from me before. Cooking for him, and I, for that matter, has always been a creative process. We made a wonderful chilli-con-carne with black beans because neither likes kidney beans. Black beans are a bit difficult to find here but we did at a natural store. Being "sous chef" I had to cut a bunch of onions up, felt like Julia Child in the movie Julie and Julia. (If you haven’t seen it she goes to Cordon-Bleu cooking school in France and one of the scenes shows her practising cutting up onions, a heap of them!)

We have wonderful, easy to use appliances here at the flat, once we figured out how to use them on our first visit. The partners have collected all operating manuals in English for use which are needed sometimes. That was a bonus when just last week I came into the kitchen to find the dishwasher, door closed, leaking soap suds. Oops, Bruce had loaded a dish that must have been impeding the rinsing arm either top or bottom. I really should have taken a picture but was in “fix-it” mode. Wasn’t a big deal, just found out exactly how much soap one of those tablets contains, a lot and a clean, clean, up job!

Creative tagging on a side street in Freiburg

Update as per my email sent to followers of this blog:


Here is another version of the Spring Fair in Sevilla, wonderful pictures by Ryan and Angela our friends that are there now, check it out, it's an outsider's version of what to expect of the Feria when you're not invited into the family or club tents, no worries, it's not a complaint....

www.jetsliketaxis.com

I met Karen and Rich at the expat bloggers lunch we had in Sevilla. They are seasoned travellers and Karen writes books about their experiences. I just read this one and recommend it highly if you like reading about experiences in travel, and you do if you are still liking my blog! You know I do not promote any site for funding, just to give you another option to read something different.

http://www.amazon.de/Adventures-Railway-Nomad-Journeys-English-ebook/dp/B00SS19MX4?tag=smarturl-de-21

Their website is www.enjoylivingabroad.com

That's all for now, Cheers, Bx2 and hunting Lexi Cat