#schonach

[merpmonde]

Now that @fredomotophoto is back from Alsace and Germany, I can do a piece on Black Forest clocks without spoiling his trip! The area has a lot of clock-making history, and to this day, typical tourist shops like the one above - TriBär, a play on the town of Triberg and the word Bär which... you can guess, a.k.a the House of 1000 Clocks - are full of cuckoo clocks ticking and going off all the time. It probably gets quite weird working in one of those places...

Triberg is host to the most extreme cuckoo clocks. The world's smallest are housed in the Schwarzwaldmuseum in the town centre. Wall camera on the right for scale.

Further up into the hills, on the edge of Schonach, is the opposite: this is world's first largest cuckoo clock, referenced in this previous post. As it was closed on the day I visited, I don't know much about the history of this clock, but it's housed in a building the size of a small house (gate on the right for scale)... and it isn't the biggest one any more.

The current biggest one is on the other side of Triberg, and located at the base of a big climb on the Schwarzwald Railway Adventure Trail. Gate on the right for scale. The whole building doesn't count as the clock itself (that would be too easy), only the mechanism does, and it is 4.5 m wide, with an 8 m pendulum. It took 5 years to build and its cost is estimated in the millions of euros, so you know what you're in for if you want to beat it. For a small fee, it is possible to visit the interior, but I was a bit pressed for time as I didn't want to miss the next train at the next viewpoint. I just took a break in the shop and caught the 5 o'clock cuckoo before moving on.

Bonus clock from the museum:

[postcard-from-the-past]

Winter scene in Schonach, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

German vintage postcard

[eksperigifs]

stealing a man

[xtruss]

Located within the scenic southwestern region of Germany, the Black Forest boasts a myriad of distinctive trees and is home to a rich and diverse cultural heritage of the local community. Photograph By Yulia Denisyuk

Photo Story: A Journey Through The Craft Heritage of Germany's Black Forest

Ringed by mountains and steeped in tradition, the Black Forest region in southwest Germany has inspired centuries’ worth of fairytales. Today, its story revolves around craftsmanship, creativity and time itself.

— Story and Photographs By Yulia Denisyuk | April 17, 2023

He stands in the centuries-old distillery in the village of Bad Peterstal-Griesbach in the central Black Forest, explaining that the company switched from schnapps to gin a decade or so ago.

Top Left: “The valley we’re in is home to over a thousand distilleries producing schnapps — the highest concentration in Europe,” says Hannes Schmidt, CEO of the Boar Distillery. Top Right: “Fifteen years ago, the region was seen as old-fashioned,” adds Beate Axmann, a participating artist whose paintings explore themes of global migration. Bottom: “It takes two kilograms of wool and about one week of work to create one bollenhut,” explains Gutach-based Gabriele Aberle, one of only two remaining bollenhut makers. There are different versions for various stages of life: at weddings, a crown of multicoloured beads and mirrors (to stave off the devil) is donned; after marriage, it’s a bollenhut with black pompoms. The hats are still in use at weddings and festivals, and can only be worn by someone from the three villages.

Nestled on the slopes of the Rench Valley, the distillery makes limited batches using water from its own spring. And it’s not just any gin — infused with 19 local botanicals, it’s one of the world’s most-awarded. ​

Left: “The secret,” says Schmidt, “is in the Black Forest Burgundy truffle. We experimented for half a year to find just the right amount to add.” The Boar Distillery is open for visits and tastings, but can sell out a year in advance. Right: ​“It’s important for our culture to know where we come from and where we’re going. This is what this movement is all about,” says Uwe Baumann, creator of Cosmos Black Forest, a project that brings together local artists to reinterpret Black Forest traditions. The idea was to play with traditional symbols such as the cuckoo clock and bollenhut hat, and make them relevant to modern times.

Left: “Today, it’s different. We have a rich contemporary art scene.” Cosmos Black Forest creations can be found across the region, including at Kloster Hirsau, a museum set in a medieval monastery in Hirsau. ​Right: The towns of Kirnbach, Gutach and Reichenbach are home to a tradition that’s become a symbol of the region. The bollenhut is a plaster and straw hat with 14 wool pompoms. Since the 18th century, unmarried women have worn red hats, signifying they are looking for suitors (red being seen as the colour of youth)

Left: South of Gutach lies Schonach, a quiet town with a big claim to fame: it’s the birthplace of the cuckoo clock. Right: The industry developed here in the mid-18th century, with all the elements coming together to make the clock tick: local wood for the housing, plus the mechanism and the bellows responsible for the signature cuckoo sound.

Left: Conny and Ingolf Haas are the fourth-generation co-owners of cuckoo-clock-making company Rombach & Haas. “Our hearts beat cuckoo and we wanted to bring the clock back into people’s living rooms,” says Ingolf. “They were once considered kitsch — today, they’re in again.” ​Right: It’s unclear who invented the Black Forest gateau, a cake comprising chocolate sponge layers, cream, sour cherries and kirschwasser (cherry schnapps). ​

According to Ingolf, the Black Forest has a special energy, where time stretches and problems disappear, if only for a moment. For him, that energy lives inside the cuckoo clock.

Here, Freddy Boch, owner of Hotel Engel, has been making the gateaux for three decades using his grandfather’s recipe. Every two years, he organises the Black Forest Cake Festival, where a panel of confectioners judges over 250 cakes from all over the world. Along with other local chefs, Boch also runs Black Forest gateau-making workshops.

[acrossthewavesoftime]

An amazing piece of art (and what a lovely prompt challenge, I enjoyed every single creation of yours so far!), but allow me to add a little more context on the Bollenhut:

The Bollenhut and the traditional attire going with it are only worn in three historically majority-Protestant villages in the Black Forest: Gutach, Kirnbach and Hornberg-Reichenbach.

The reason why the ladies in their red pompom straw hats became the face of the Black Forest is that they were getting a lot of publicity very early on. Starting in the 19th century, with a Grand Duchess of Baden donning the hat on travels to the Black Forest, the works of a few traditional and photographic artists active in the area who were fascinated by the Bollenhut and lastly, kitschy midcentury movies about rural idylls (which naturally had to feature women in striking folk costume), the Bollenhut swiftly became associated with the entire region.

The Black Forest however has so many more fascinating different styles of traditional attire and headgear to offer, allow me to add three:

St. Georgen area: Wedding party with the women wearing Schäppel, photo Heinrich Martin via Badisches Landesmuseum, 1900-1930.

Schonach: tall straw hats, photo by user Benutzer:Schwarzwälder, via Wikimedia Commons, 1999.

Villingen: gold Radhauben; "wheel bonnets", photo by Andreas Praefcke, via Wikimedia Commons, 2011.

Fooduary Day 11: Black Forest Cake

The invention/inventors of Black Forest Cake are definitely disputed. Some people think it was named after a specialty liquor from the Black Forest region, others claim it was inspired by by the traditional women’s costume…. Guess how that inspired me? This design is very much derived from the folk costume of the Black Forest region, famous for its red Pom-poms called Bollenhut. The red pompoms = the red cherries essential to Black Forest cake. I mean the liquor is essential too but this is a fashion/character design challenge, c’mon. The Bollenhut has been worn since 1750 with unmarried women wearing red pompoms and married women wearing black Pompoms.

I am the artist! Do not post without permission & credit! Thank you! Come visit me over on: instagram, tiktok or check out my coloring book available now \ („• ֊ •„) /

https://linktr.ee/ellen.artistic

[erfigh]

#wellgrösste #kuckucksuhr #schonach #🕛 #cucuclock #wellgrösste #germany🇩🇪 #blackforest #triberg #travels #germany #chusayinka #alemania #schwarzwald #triberg #schonach #visitgermany #blackforest #instatravel #travelgram #forest #deutschland #orologiacucú #foretnoire #travelphotography #instatraveling #wanderer #relojdecucu (en Weltgrößte Kuckucksuhr :-)) https://www.instagram.com/p/ChJmXnlKqjr/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[raapija]

Big shoutout to the guy who brough a raindow flag to the track 🥰

[landscape-lunacy]

Schonach, Germany - by Oliver Wiehl

[merpmonde]

A few more odds and sods from Triberg. I'm not going to show much more because someone commented on a previous post saying that they will visit Triberg in June, so I'm not going to spoil everything for them, particularly regarding cuckoo clocks.

The Black Forest is well known for its cuckoo clocks, and Triberg is home to the most extreme: the largest, which is a possible stop on the Railway Adventure Trail we covered yesterday, and the smallest, which are housed in the Schwarzwald Museum. But there is also a "first biggest cuckoo clock"... in Schonach. This would be the first clock to be recognised as the biggest by the well-known record book, but it has since been overtaken by the one in Triberg.

It's closed on Mondays, so all I have is this photo from the main road between Triberg and Schonach - in which I've cropped out the clock on the left. The clock is on the old road between the two towns, which is much nicer and at times bucolic. Schonach has a ski jumping hill which I'd like to visit, but didn't manage to fit it in on my one-day trip.

Between the waterfalls and the first biggest cuckoo clock is the Bergsee, a tiny lake with a simple café-restaurant on its edge - decent food, calmer* and not as pricey as downtown Triberg. The lake served as an alternate venue for ice-skating competitions in the 1920s, when Berlin wasn't cold enough!

[postcard-from-the-past]

Folklore garment from Schonach, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

German vintage postcard

[eksperigifs]

...doesn’t always work out...

[soziwha]

Hiking in the blackforest. #hiking #blackforest #schonach #blindensee #lake #moor #forest #tree #mushrooms #intothewoods #vacation #holidays #schwarzwald https://www.instagram.com/p/CkOe0YDqDbM6hceWELdPgVBjPBVbPKy8BLHmUk0/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[peregrinatioblog]

07.09.2022 FC Teutonia 09 Schonach – FC Bräunlingen 3:1 Obertalstadion (100)

[andrea-asr]

[fisicol92]

World Cup winner Akito Watabe does not show any signs of letting up. The Japanese clinched his 16th World Cup victory in Schonach and entered his name on the Schwarzwaldpokal winner list. After a strong cross-country race, Watabe finished 6.3 seconds ahead of Norway’s Jarl Magnus Riiber. Bernhard Gruber claimed the third place, +8.5 seconds after Watabe.