A BIRD’S EYE VIEW

It was a sunless autumn morning when we travelled through The Black Forest of Germany. The slopes on the right and left for miles and miles were heavily wooded with evergreens…conifers growing close together, tall and straight like sentries reaching for the sky, their conical tops piercing the clouds and some errant branches sticking out and spraying the ashen blue sky like the fine black lines of a Chinese painting. Far down in the lush green valleys, there were clusters of half timbered houses standing sequestered. It was an enchanted place torn out of the pages of The Fairy Tales Of The Grimm Brothers, inspired by these dark woods…of Hansel and Gretel lost in the forest, a place of wicked step-mothers and tender-hearted dwarfs and helpless princesses…Snow White and Cinderella swept away by charming princes on their white steeds and imps and bad losers like Rumpelstiltskin in his pointy hat and shoes, jumping on his short crooked legs in a fit of fury.

They took us to several places in the Black Forest region…we swept through these scenic spots and managed quick cursory glances…Baden Baden the lovely spa town, Frieberg, where we had to keep our heads down to marvel at the cobblestone mosaics. At the Frieberg Munster we craned our necks and squinted into the sky to gaze at the gothic filigree spire, beautiful and intricate as lace, soaring into the sky and…shrank back at the many evil-faced gargoyles, squatting on stone ledges, one even pointing his rear end at us… grotesque howling faces…meant to scare away evil spirits seeking to sneak into sanctified ground…and on days when it poured, these sinister protectors of the cathedral spouted out the water so it wouldn’t run down and soak the stone walls. After we had stepped into the dark interior of the cathedral to admire the stained glass, we were set free and told to come back after two hours. Most of us wandered around aimlessly while the Eager Beavers in the group, a sprightly bunch in their 50’s and 60’s with no signs of waning enthusiasm for learning… scurried away purposefully…to seek out all the sights. They had no need for lunch breaks because they made themselves sandwiches, and squirreled away buns and croissants and wedges of cakes and flasks of coffee in their backpacks from the breakfast bar and nourished themselves while walking and recording the sights on their mobiles. Yiannis and I, the laggers and seekers of comfort, followed our noses and snuggled in the warmth of a luncheon restaurant and sat down to a plate of fish and chips…cod tossed in breadcrumbs and fried to a golden brown…crunchy on the outside and succulent inside…the sights of Frieberg could wait.

Some days were bright and sunny and on other days we had to zip up our jackets as early autumn slinked in and a cool wind tickled our napes. It was on such a day that we stood on the shores of Lake Titisee, a huge glacial lake surrounded by wooded mountains, in the south of the Black Forest. It was a sullen day and the water, appearing in photographs  as smooth as ice and a spectacular blue, was now a little choppy and dark…`Let’s go for a ride around the lake,’ said Yiannis…`Oh no’ I thought…`One of those tourist boats again.’…We had done so many of those rides in lakes and rivers in various countries and I really wasn’t game. He read my thoughts…`No not in one of those’…and instead he pointed at a bunch of small boats bobbing like corks on the side of the pier…`One of those PEDAL BOATS!!!’ It was such a huge lake and I was sure we would pedal and pant just a quarter way around the lake and then someone would have to come out and rescue us. To my relief what he was suggesting were the ones with electric motors and all you had to do was steer the thing and sit back in comfort.

When they talk about downgrading as you grow older, this is what they meant. Once upon a time our summers were spent on a yacht slicing the Aegean Sea and heading for some island sparkling like a jewel in the blue waters…and now…we were chugging along in a plastic tub in a lake. But actually we were having fun without having to worry about winds and radars and compasses… skirting the shore and drinking in the beauty of the place…the dark woods edging towards the water and houses with sloped roofs tucked away among spruce, fir and pine and…`Hey look there’s a boat coming our way!’ I shouted. A tourist boat bulging with passengers, waving at onlookers…people on boats on holiday always wave… was coming our way…a long way away but our way nevertheless and you can’t take chances in a plastic tub. So Yiannis, with me urging him on shrilly, steered away from the shore and headed towards the pier…`Go faster!’ I shouted…`There are only two speeds, 1 and 2 and we’re doing 2!’ said the skipper in irritation. Then we realized there were two piers and we knew not which one we had come from…`Can you see anyone waving at us???’ asked the skipper because apparently the people who rent out these vessels normally wave you back to shore and safety. But there was no one waving and we tried the first pier and indeed there was a man waving. At that point Yiannis sat up straight and eased the tub in with skipperly skill with one hand and threw the ropes with the other to the waiting man. As we were walking away he looked at me from the corner of his eyes, beamed with pride and said…`Looks like there are certain things you just don’t forget.’

Our last stop in The Black Forest was Triberg, a small picturesque town with tumbling waterfalls and rapids skidding over smooth rocks and gurgling streams and wooden bridges. It is a town also famous for its cuckoo clocks and we headed straight for a shop with a thousand cuckoo clocks. Yiannis was adamant on buying one because the one we had at home inherited from some aunt, was a hundred years old and bits were falling off and bunches of keys were hanging from its bronze weights to help drag them down and the bird was reaching the end of its life and could only utter a…`tok tok.’ At the end of the visit we boarded the bus with a nice big box tucked securely under Yiannis’s arm and the guide exclaimed in enthusiasm…`Bravo bravo so you did buy a clock!’…and one of the Eager Beavers asked…` Have you checked to see if it was made in China?’… Just before we left the town, we stopped at the largest cuckoo clock in the world. It was a house with black beams and the whole façade was the clock. It was almost 4 in the afternoon and the coach took the corner and stopped a little further off for those who wanted to see the cuckoo make its appearance and take some photos. The Eager Beavers alighted from the coach and the rest of us sank deeper into our seats. Yiannis followed them. After 10 minutes or so he came back with his shoulders shaking with laughter…`Did I miss anything?’ I asked. When he managed to compose himself, he told me that a tired looking bird crawled out…opened its mouth and crowed in a raspy voice and everyone wondered if it would make it to the end…but it was clapped and cheered on by a group of young tourists till the very last croak which culminated in a roar of applause.

We spent the next day visiting some picture-book villages in the wine region of Alsace…Colmar, Eguisheim, Riquewihr and Ribeauville. They spun out an old world charm… quaint with narrow winding cobbled streets, timber framed houses, splashes of pink and red geraniums in window boxes and crumbling castles atop mountains. We said we’d come again, stay for a while and soak in the beauty, do some wine tasting and savour the local food. But for now we had to make do with sitting on a bench and sharing a chewy bretzel with a topping of tomatoes and green olives and watching the storks standing in their nests, high up on rooftops, surveying their surroundings.

After every visit to each place we returned to Strasbourg and walked by its beautiful canals and even took a boat ride and diners by the water waved at us and we waved back and we had French cuisine and drank the famous Alsace Riesling and Pinot Noir and then we went on to Italian and on the last evening we decided to try a Vietnamese restaurant. On the way we spotted the Famous Five aka the Eager Beavers walking ahead of us. We walked past, turned our heads and said a quick hello. We didn’t give them time to ask us where we were going. They wouldn’t be interested anyway. Unlike us they were more adventurous… in search of hidden streets far away from the buzzing crowds to winkle out some local eatery and have a slice of tarte flambee and quench their throats with some robust wine straight from the barrel. We, on the other hand, consulted the Trip Advisor and had to use the dreaded GPS to find the restaurant on a well-known quay. We went up and down and finally it said…`You are here.’…But where was HERE???…until we glimpsed a green wooden door, the paint worn out and faded…`CAN’T BE THIS!!!’ I exclaimed. The top half was glass and we peered in. It was cosy with warm lights and wooden floors and a high ceiling and… so inviting and the food was delicious and the wine a chilled Riesling that loosened our limbs and brains.

On the last day of our trip we drove to Switzerland, visited the Rhine Falls and stamped our faces on a selfie, with the roaring spraying water in the background, then the medieval town of Stein Am Rhein to marvel at the old buildings with dark timber frames and frescoes on the walls and then rushed out to get to Zurich… but before that a quick visit to the toilet at the parking lot. I stepped in…and wondered where I was and… how to go about it and… if they provided some sort of manual. The toilet was a huge conical stainless steel bowl…like some modern baptismal font for adults where you could step into and sit…and the seat was upright and suspended high up in the air. There were several touch-switches on the wall and one, I suspected, when pressed would lower the seat. I was too afraid to try and besides had no need for a seat in a public toilet. When I had finished I stepped a safe distance away and tried one of the switches to flush it…some water squirted out from the side…another switch…hot air whooshed out from the other side…Were they aimed for certain meaningful areas or for my hands?…I couldn’t tell and I really couldn’t leave the toilet unflushed and… gingerly tapped the third switch and heard the sound of rushing water. What a relief! The lady after me was really hesitant especially when she saw the seat hovering in the air. I told her not to touch any of the switches but the third one. She came out and told me she didn’t touch anything at all and when she hurried to the door…it flushed itself.

Our very last stop was Zurich. It was Sunday midday…expensive cars were cruising the wide boulevards and avenues lined with impressive window displays of branded goods…clothes, shoes watches… and every now and then the roar of a Ferrari or Porsche. Yiannis and I sat at an outdoor Italian amongst a cosmopolitan crowd under some scuttling clouds threatening to sprinkle us with a drizzle or two. We tucked into some spicy arrabiata and a delicious fruity Italian white wine. We couldn’t think of a better way to end the holiday.

Well cheers for now.