#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:

[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=

[landscape-lunacy]

Schonach, Germany - by Oliver Wiehl

[andrea-asr]

[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

[merpmonde]

More views of Schonach

A quick post today as I don't have much time... So here are some views around the ski jumping hill and cross-country skiing venue for this weekend's Schwarzwaldpokal.

[merpmonde]

Schwarzwaldpokal!

Finally, as someone who used to watch a lot of it, I've been to a ski jumping event in person! And it wasn't just jumping, it was nordic combined, which sees a jump followed by cross-country skiing; the same people, doing both. It happened today at Schonach, in the Black Forest, next to Triberg and all those cuckoo clocks.

The hill was built in October 1924, and is therefore celebrating its 100th anniversary, hence the big "100" on the knoll. Much younger is the concept of the Womens' Nordic Combined World Cup - it only exists since 2020! Ski jumping has been the final frontier for women in winter sport, so it was great to see men and women compete.

The longest jump of the day was 102 m, twice, for Norway's Jarl Magnus Riiber and Austria's Thomas Rettenegger. In the womens' contest, Germany's Maria Gerboth took the lead with 95 m.

The competitions follow the Gundersen format, in which the jump comes first, and the gaps in points after that equate to time handicaps at the start of the cross-country race. Above left are the time penalties for some in the womens' race, and right, the start, with the top three starting almost together, while the others must wait. The race is effectively a pursuit, with the athlete crossing the line first being the winner.

In the end, Norway were unbeatable today. Despite starting with a 25-second handicap, Ida Marie Hagen took the lead of the womens' 4 km race in the middle of the first lap and didn't look back, celebrating her upcoming win in the final corner (left picture)! Nathalie Armbruster got the host nation's only podium of the day, ahead of the Kasai twins from Japan.

The mens' race was longer, at 10 km, and required more effort management. On the final lap, Jarl Magnus Riiber lost his long-held lead to Jens Luras Oftebro (right picture), who would defeat Austria's Johannes Lamparter in the final sprint to the finish.

All in all, a great day. Fresh in the morning, especially with the hill in shade, which also made photos more difficult, nice in the sunshine in the afternoon, the races were easy to follow (it was surprising how much of the cross-country course we could see), the atmosphere was really pleasant, and I wasn't going it alone for a change!