Saturday, July 08, 2006

And the Black Forest

I forgot the Black Forest part of the journey ... perhaps it is that we covered so much ground in so few days.

We travelled from the lowlands of Belgium up into the Ardennes and on through a little of France, Germany and the Netherlands in 30+o celsius heat, with the temperature staying that high until our return to Belgium last night ... it doesn't make for clear-minded thinking.

The Black Forest reminded me of New Zealand in places. We had our local guide and he drove the back roads where ever possible, creating some interesting map-reading moments with ML and I observing as he and Al discussed possible routes and destinations.

Kindly put, I'm directionally challenged ... less kindly put and I'm geographically hopeless. Rome alone was the only place I have ever successfully followed maps. It's better that I observe as people get cross when I 'help'.

The Black Forest was the place where ML and Al discovered they can't stand lard and bacon on bread ... a hilarious photo opportunity missed. (Note: lard can take on the appearance of some kind of exotic cheese pre-purchase).

We detoured out of the forest early, in pursuit of ML's dream of visiting the Heidelberg ... first seen in 'The Student Prince'.

Off to Amsterdam today ...

3 comments:

Mark J said...

Hello Di. Glad to see you back safe and sound :)

Kay Cooke said...

The Black Forest always sounds so exotic - but if it's like NZ, it can't be!! (We did travel through there in the 70s on our OE - but it rained and rained and rained ... so we missed alot of good stuff - like the Black Forest which was the Sodden Forest for us!!!)

Di Mackey said...

Thanks Mark ... we come and we go, today is a rest day then we're off to Flanders Fields, Brugge and ecetera :)

Oh chiefbiscuit, NZ is so exotic and clean and pretty. We were worried about rain on this trip too but we've had an incredible amount of luck with blue skies, only stumbling over the high temperatures.