Saturday morning while Peter made the customary visit to the baguette shop I packed up the apartment and we were on our way south by 10 am. We are headed into the centre of the Black Forest, a distance of about 80 kilometres from Sasbachwalden but with many stops it took us all day. Our first stop of the day was at a hardware store - those who know Peter well will know that he loves Bunnings and takes every opportunity to visit. Last week we had walked into a hardware store in France thinking it was a supermarket and as we wandered around Peter found a stainless steel plug which he is sure will fit our spa bath at home. He had tried in vain to get a replacement in New Zealand and had ended up buying a rubber one. Over the last couple of days he has been looking for another hardware shop as he thought he should stock up with plugs while he can. Bingo, a shop was found, two plugs purchased - one happy man. Can I now say our trip to Germany is tax deductible as we had to come here to purchase the correct bathroom parts? Lunch stop was at the village of Gutach where we sat in the park in the centre of town and enjoyed our baguette with ham and cheese. This village is the home of the typical Bollen hats but unfortunately the few people we saw around weren't wearing a winter type hat as it was 35 degrees. Walking around the village we saw the statue commissioned after World War I to honour the fallen soldiers. The craftsman decided to depict a weeping German woman and this statue has become well known. After our walk we decided to backtrack a few kilometres to visit the Vogtsbauernhol Open-Air Museum (www.vogtsbauernhof.de). This museum recreates the traditional country life in the Black Forest. There are six old farmhouses which we were able to enter, all fully furnished and these date back to 1612. Thirteen generations of one family, and countless animals, have lived in one of the houses. There were also other buildings including the church, sawmill, bakery and brewery. Demonstrations were taking place but sadly no one in traditional dress - only on Sundays. Continuing through the central Black Forest we came across a huge cuckoo clock - the biggest we have seen but there are bound to be bigger around. The shop must have had hundreds more in stock varying from very little to quite large and none were purchased by us. Apparently the origins of the typical Black Forest cuckoo clock dates back to the clock making industry that grew in the area in the 17th century. Today there are many, many cuckoo clock shops in this part of the Black Forest. We made our next stop at Tribert which is apparently famed worldwide for its waterfalls. We decided not to pay and then trek up the hill to see the waterfall - we could see quite a bit from the bridge and it was still very warm so not hill climbing conditions. Also the waterfalls are all quite small and not in the least spectacular. Perhaps we have been spoilt by seeing lots of others. As we did not have an accommodation booking, and it was getting late in the day, we continued on and Gypsy, our trusty GPS, decided to take us off the main road and through a narrow forest road. We just about thought we were four wheel driving again except that the road was asphalt. Once back on the main road we commenced down a long, steep and windy mountain pass for about thirty kilometres and arrived at the town of Simonswald. Here we decided to look for accommodation and after a number of false attempts as all the "zimmers" were fully booked we were advised to try the Gausthof Bern which is a hotel. My attempts to attract someone to assist was useless but Peter eventually met with an elderly man who said we could stay in room 4 for €68 including breakfast at 9 am. This sounded fine and we came inside. We now think that we are the only guests of this hotel tonight as there are no other lights on, and no one in sight. Oh well, the rooms are clean, beds are made, hot water in the ensuite and we feel safe so nothing to worry about. We have the hotel to ourselves. Postscript - there were two other groups at breakfast so we did not have the hotel to ourselves. We enjoyed dinner down the road at one of the German restaurants - lots of people about and friendly service and beautiful food. No complaints from us. We enjoyed a typical European breakfast of fresh bread with butter and berry jams and also salami and cheese with coffee with pouring cream. The hotel owner was keen to hold a conversation with us, in German of course, so with limited help of the I-phone translation app and had signals we understood that his family had owned the hotel for nearly four hundred years. The dates on the outside of the building confirmed this for is. Leaving behind Simonswald we headed via a very narrow forest road to Hinterzarten an area with over 100 kms of walking tracks. We parked near the centre of town and then enjoyed walking following one of the tracks before heading back into the town. From here we could see one of to ski jumps close to town. Next stop was Lake Tittisee which is the largest natural lake in the Black Forest. The lake is converted to a skating rink in winter and is considered safe enough when the ice is 16 centimetres thick. Lake Tittisee is a popular holiday spot and tourist attraction and in this Sunday afternoon at the end of a four day holiday week-end there were crowds of people. We lunched then took a boat trip on the lake before heading on to a quieter part of the forest. The church at Todtnau caught our attention - apparently the origins go back to the 13th century, although the current church was a rebuild in 1876 following a fire. The hairdresser who invented the "perm" came from the village of Todtnau. Before we knew it we had left the Black Forest behind (and I had missed my opportunity for afternoon of Black Forest Gateaux). As we were now close to the borders between Germany, France and Switzerland we looked for accommodation. We found a zimmer in a newly built home - two totally separate apartments built in the roof space of the two level home complete with kitchens, bathrooms and living/bedroom space. One of these was perfect for our needs and @ €68 including tax fitted into our budget. We enjoyed dinner in the neighbourhood beer garden restaurant sitting outside with e locals under the trees. A perfect way to finish our Black Forest sojourn even though they didn't have gateaux on the menu. Tomorrow we leave Germany and travel to Bern to meet up with Nina who was hosted with us in Melbourne.