Titisee - A nice day outing for nature lovers!. Review on Titisee, Neustadt

It was November 2011 and I was in Stuttgart at the time. I met up with a person who wanted to visit the town of Titisee. I had also planned to visit Paris with him about a week later. I was anyway free on the weekends. When I learnt it was located amidst the Southern Black Forest, I was at once interested. The place is associated with a lot of natural beauty and Mt. Feldberg (highest peak in Germany outside of Alps) is located in close proximity, so there was also a chance that we would get to see some snow. One fine late November on a weekend, we set out for a day trip to Titisee. We traveled by a regional train as Stuttgart was quite well connected to the town in terms of train routes.

LITTLE BIT ABOUT TITISEE

Titisee is actually a lake amidst the Southern Black Forest. Its genesis can be traced to the Feldberg glacier in its vicinity. It is supposed to be around 20 m deep on an average. On its northern shores is where the town of Titisee is located. It falls under the municipality of Titisee-Neustadt district. The lake itself is around 1.3 square km wide and is named after Roman emperor Titus.

THE TRIP

The train journey was a pleasant one as we could see greenery on either side aplenty. It was a reasonably sunny day, considering it was almost December and we were in Germany. I was accompanied by the person I mentioned and a companion of his. The Black Forest is mostly constituted of mixed coniferous forests and we could see the gradual transformation of the vegetation around us as we left Stuttgart and edged closer to Titisee.

On finally getting there, we decided we would visit what was supposed to be a popular skiing area near Feldberg. We hopped on to a bus to get there. However, on getting there, we found that there was no natural snow there yet, that year. But there was still a patch of artificially created icy snow, which is the norm there so that people who want to indulge in skiing can do so, even if snowfall is a bit late in a given year. We fooled around in the patches of snow for a bit, I never actually having set foot on real snow before. The artificial snow was also in the process of being laid out, so dabbling with skiing was out of the question. I noticed there was also a provision of funiculars (cable cars) in the hilly terrain to facilitate movement of people. We maundered around the mounds and with the onset of afternoon, hopped onto a bus to Titisee.

The greenery around you while traveling between Feldberg to Titisee was also no less beautiful. On setting foot in Titisee eventually, we first approached the Titisee lake. The lake itself doesn’t strike you as something spellbinding. But the surrounding Black Forest sort of augments its beauty. Nevertheless, it is a great place for boating and you can feed ducks at the shores, who seem to have no fear. When the ice cover is adequate in the cold season, it also used for ice skating. Not so on that occasion. We gazed around the lake for some time with the town on one side and the surrounding hilly Black Forest on the other sides. Every now and then, a train would pass through the hilly terrain and it would look like a cute toy train from a distance.

Next, we decided we would explore the town itself for a while. Nice little town it was, with some shops with antiquities for tourists and some ancient looking houses. The town was known for such things, most of all – Cuckoo Clocks. One of the very few places in Germany where one would find them. Some Germans I’d spoken to earlier mentioned to me that they didn’t quite understand tourists’ fascination with cuckoo clocks because Germans themselves seem to have declared it outdated. I couldn’t speak for everyone else, but I replied that my fascination stemmed from my familiarity with Grimm’s Fairy Tales, where we do find several references to the cuckoo clock and the fairy tales being famous are something everyone grows up listening to. Now, Titisee is like the place for Cuckoo Clocks. One would find several shops selling the same – One gets a huge variety. Big ones, not so big ones, small ones, mechanically operated ones, battery operated ones and so on with various designs and patterns with the basic focus being on the cuckoo. I bought one for granny as her generation was more familiar with such.

Titisee was also the place where I first came across Huskies, although the sled-dog breed which looks very wolfy, is also commonly sighted all over Germany. I suppose my fascination with them also has something to do with my familiarity with Jack London novels. Anyway, after roaming around the town for a while, it was late afternoon. My companions wanted to roam around a bit more. I, on the other hand was interested in climbing Hochfirst, the highest peak in Titisee. It was supposed to be 1, 192 m high and overlooked the lake. Once you got to the top, there was also a tower there. One had to trek through the Black Forest to get there. The route is reasonably doable, except near the top, where it gets a bit steep and there is no clear way. One of my German colleagues had mentioned to me earlier that Black Forest also used to have a lot of wolves in the past. Although most of them were hunted down, every now and then there is an occasional sighting. My friends were not keen on the same but were willing to wait for me at the foothills, so I set off alone. I was very wary of sighting some predator all the time, glancing around at every rustle of leaves on my way. But there was none. Certainly no wolf. Just some small animals. Maybe a rabbit or two. After some climbing and stopping for pictures along the way, I finally reached the top. The view of the lake from there is incredible and I reached at a time the sun was about to set. So, that kind of added to the aura of the lake. I reached the top of Hochfirst Tower and then after few pictures, swiftly started back on my way down the hill, determined to reach the bottom before it got dark. Although my progress was swift, very soon it was dark owing to the Winter season. This made my progress a bit slower but I was lucky to find a sole person shortly afterwards, who was making his way down with a flashlight somewhere along the way, from another direction. To my surprise, I found that we weren’t far from the foothills. I had made it in pretty good time.

I was a bit late than the estimated time, but did find my companions having Black Forest cake at some shop. They had not deserted me. :) I followed suit, because that is one “must do” thing when you are in the Black Forest region. It was yummy. I narrated my adventures to them and we set off on the next train, the connectivity between there and Stuttgart being quite frequent.

Perhaps, I got a bit more adventure than I bargained for but all in all, it was a great day outing. If you’re a nature lover, then I would, without hesitation recommend this place for a nice break from the city, if you’re feeling up to it.