let’s all go to the lake

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This post is about a 17km walk from Friedenweiler to Titisee. I arrive at Titisee and see a bunch of tourists and clocks.

I stayed for two days in a cozy room under a pitched roof in a small guesthouse in a tiny village in the Black Forest. One time I decided that I wanted a yoghurt and walked twenty minutes through the woods to a store and bought one.

Titisee

There was a lake nearby with an intriguing name: Titisee. “See” meant lake in German, but I had no idea what “Titi” was supposed to be. It sounded like the setting for a Gauguin painting.

When I looked up the Titisee Wikipedia page it offered a bunch of hypotheses for the origin of the name. Maybe it meant “child” in an Alemannic dialect. Maybe the Roman emperor Titus had camped here once. Or maybe there was some nobleman in the Middle Ages whose name was Titini and who had hunted here.

Okay.

the winding way

I decided to take a forest path down to the lake. This was fun in the beginning, when I found a cabin in the woods and opened its door. It was almost completely empty, except for a white plastic clock on the wall. When I checked my watch I noticed that the clock was correct. Of course it was fucking correct. The Black Forest region was famous for its clock-making, especially its hideous cuckoo clocks, so this was a bit on the nose. I loved it.

Then the path deteriorated. It left the forest and became steep and narrow. At some point it turned into a trail next to a pasture fence. Some cows were looking on as I was trying to manoeuvre the Caboose safely down the trail. The view was great, though. Dark hills, green pastures, a few farm houses.

more clocks

When I got to the shores of Titisee, it felt like a whole different world. There were throngs of tourists everywhere. Souvenir shops, cafรฉs, and restaurants were catering to them. There were shops selling them clocks (normal ones and the hideous kind), and there were other shops selling them watches that seemed very expensive.

I ran to the other side of the lake and put up my tent in an overcrowded campground.

pictures

the walk from Friedenweiler to Titisee:



  • Bill Milligan

    Maybe somebody saw tits there once. As in, “Tit, I see!” Or maybe not.

    I’m so confused by your route. More often than not when I try to guess your next direction and where you’re headed, I end up being wrong. You’ve been heading further away from Bad Nenndorf for weeks and I for one can’t figure out where you’re going. I kind of love it!

    Reply

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