Only about a month after being in Germany, I heard about a B&B type place in the Schwarzwald where there are giant wine barrels converted into a type of overnight room.
It sounded awesome, and I decided we had to stay there one night.
The name of the place is "Schlafen im Weinfass" aka "Sleep in a Wine cask" and it's in a tiny town called Sasbachwalden in the Schwarzwald region.
It's actually more like camping than staying at a hotel. Each "room" is really made of up 2 giant (8000 liter) wine casks, resting next to each other. One has 2 twin beds or 1 full size bed, and the other is divided so that the front is a 2 person dining area, and the back in a toilet room. This turned out to consisted of a sink with running water (up to 15 liters a day) and a porti-potty type toilet, where you do your business and then pour a scoop of sawdust/woodchips over it. There were 6 of these little wine cask places spread out across the owners land, which was all vineyard, up on a mountain side, with beautiful views.
Oh yah, and you had to park your car is a little parking lot near the main building, where you check-in, and have access to a shower room and wine cask sauna.
Unfortunately, the weather was just horrible for spending the day outside or in a non-air-conditioned wooden barrel. But we made the best of it.
Before leaving Stuttgart, I realized that this is potentially the only time either of us will visit the Schwarzwald and so we should make the best of it, meaning that we should stop at a town or two along the way to Sasbachwalden.
The first such town that we could stop at (it was highway driving for the most part) was Achern. We parked the car and walked through the town, but somehow missed all the fun little shops and things and wound up walking down a residential street. BUT, this turned out to be good luck because we wandered into a city park, which was not only very pretty, but seemed to connect the residential area with the town shops and restaraunts.
At first the playground looked like any other park, but as we walked by, I noticed there was a person sized HAMSTER WHEEL!
I'm not sure who decided this was safe for children. I nearly did a sommersault backwards and fell off the thing.
And then there was a glider!
I wasn't very good at holding on. I tried to put my feet on the little platform thing, but I slipped so instead I was half sitting on it, and basically plopped onto the ground as it started swinging back up the little hill of the playground.
And secret tunnels underground, and ridiculous metal slides!
So we eventually left Achern, but still had time to kill before we could check into to our Weinfass. So we went to a little pub in Sasbachwalden for an icecream.
view of Sasbachwalden from a road
vineyard road driving through and around sasbachwalden
And eventually we made it to our Weinfass, where I discovered the people in this region speak German with a very heavy "schwaebisch" accent. Aka it's like hill-billy German. I had to listen VERY carefully to get the full meaning of what people were saying.
This is a super old fashioned cooler. Notice the wine bottles and packaged meat sitting there. Those were complementary and were delivered to us in a wicker basket! How charming! And what a delicious mid afternoon snack!
The dining room
The toilet room, complete with bucket of sawdust for the toilet.
And the best part: The view from the sleeping weinfass:
view from outside the casks
view to the side from the dining cask- looking up to the main building.
I had seen on a map before we left that there was a lake nearby, and that it looked like there were places to swim, so we decided to try our luck. It was about a 20 minute drive, and a beautiful mountainy one at that, before we found the lake. After about another 10 minutes, we found a little path leading to the water where we could go swimming. The lake was very pretty, but the water was rather brown and cloudy, which made me apprehensive, but it turned out to be quite pleasant one I got in.
We spent about an hour at the lake, before heading back to the weinfass to get ready for dinner. We had planned on eating at a Pizzaria in Sasbachwalden, but to our dismay it turned out that they were closed on Tuesdays! So instead we drove back to Achern and ate at the Ratskeller restaurant.
It was the only German restaurant I've been to where they bring a little plate of complementary bread, AND a 0,2 L complimentary house beer! In fact, I've never seen either here! We had a long relaxing dinner- I had forgotten that in Germany you really have to ask for the bill, otherwise the waiter or waitress will think you just want to sit there and relax for a while. The only problem was that by the time we left, it was dark outside, and we had to drive through the dark back through part of the schwarzwald to our weinfass.
I would not want to be walking out there at night. It's beautiful in the daylight, but a bit eerie when it's dark.
Anyway, to our pleasant surprise, as we started walking on the path to our weinfass, we noticed that each little weinfass platz had a tree next to it wrapped in Christmas lights, and that the front of our dining fass has little grape shaped decorative lights hanging on it. So cute!
By this point, it was still quite warm outside, but cooled off enough that it was decent to sit outside and look at all the lights in the distance of the nearby towns.
Wednesday
In the morning, another basket of meats, bread and cheese was delivered to the dining weinfass, and so we enjoyed another hearty German breakfast.
Notice the reflection in the glass window of the weinfass of the valley!
We took our time enjoying the view, and then decided that before heading back to Stuttgart, we needed to get a real piece of Schwarzwaldkirschtorte (aka Black forest cherry cake) while we were in the Schwarzwald, as it is a specialty of the region.
So I asked the lady when we checked out where we should go.
Funny story about trying to understand schwaebisch German as a foreigner. I thought she was telling me to look for an ice cream car with a sign (Eis motor blahblahblah) when really she said to look for an Iron Motorcycle [sculpture] (EisenMotorrad [Skulptur] ).
I did however understand that she told us to drive up the mountain just a little bit further, and luckily Tyler saw a sign for "Hoechsten schwarzwaldkirschtorte" and at that point I noticed the motorcycle sculpture and realized my mistake.
Unfortunately we arrived at 11am and the place didn't open until 11:30. So we decided to take a little walk around the area, and found a path leading down into a forest.
It was a magic forest!!! This is where all the Fairytales happen! There were so many wooden bridges over little rock waterfalls! Pictures cannot express the amazingness of this place. Unbelievable.
It's called Glaishoelle, and I will never forget that place.
looking for trolls under the bridge
If it weren't for the severe heat of the day once again, and the desire for cake, I think we could have stayed much longer exploring the forest, but by 11:30 we were once again crossing the street to the café selling Schwarzwaldkirschtorte.
Now, imagine the biggest piece of cake you have ever seen in person. I'm 90% sure this tops it!
7 layers, chocolate cake, brandy cherries, chocolate cake, whipped cream, chocolate cake, whipped cream, chocolate cake, whipped cream, chocolate cake, whipped cream, chocolate cake, whipped cream, chocolate cake, whipped cream, cherry on top, covered in chocolate flakes.
I was almost defeated by cake. It was spectacular.
I'd guess it was something like 20-25 cm high.
After eating about half!
And that concluded our adventure in the Schwarzwald. Triumph!
* * *
Wednesday evening, we walked around the stadtmitte for a little while before meeting Helly and Biddy at an Italian restaurant called Vapiano. Tyler and I finally got to eat pizza, and he got to meet Helly (who I talk about a lot, because she is the best German buddy!)
Then later on, there was a block party going on for the group of dorms next to mine, so we met up with a couple of my friends, and Tyler got to experience what an outdoor German college party is like. Lot's of food and beer tents, 2 live music stages, and a DJ booth. I've never seen anything like one in the US, which makes it that much more exciting just to stand around and look at everything. I also got to introduce Tyler to more of my international friends, including a guy from Singapore, another Australian, and a couple of Canadians.
It was a great way to end a Wednesday.
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