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Return Costume pair Almost every place has its own traditional costume. In the Black Forest, costumes have a great tradition, which is still actively cultivated today. It is noticeable that the wealth of variations from place to place is quite high. In total, there are said to be 120 different traditional costumes in the Black Forest. Traditional costumes probably originated in the sixteenth century, as a result of various dress codes that were related to the respective social classes. The affiliation to religious denominations played an essential role, as well as the marital status. However, traditional costume areas are largely based on the dominions, as they were in pre-Napoleonic times. Nevertheless, the Black Forest traditional costumes are also part of the ecclesiastical tradition. In the Black Forest, the colors black, white and red as well as purple dominate the traditional costumes. The men usually wear a wide, white shirt, over it a black vest with red lining, and with it black pants and a hat of the same color. The stockings are either white or red, and the shoes are black. The women wear basically the same set, instead of trousers a long skirt in black, which is heavily pleated and therefore quite weighty. The white blouse has half-length puffed sleeves. Over it comes a velvet bodice embroidered with small floral motifs, especially tinsel on the collar. This is then accompanied by purple ribbons and white stockings and black shoes. In 1894, a first traditional costume association was founded in Hausach. Many other towns and communities followed this example. If you want to get an overview of all the traditional costumes known in the Black Forest, you should take a look at the Black Forest Costume Museum in Haslach, which was founded in 1980. More than a hundred life-size figures display a wide variety of traditional costumes. You can also buy original costumes from the Black Forest in some stores in the region. However, the pieces are not exactly cheap, because their production is expensive.

Return Charcoal burning Poor charcoal Peter … Charcoal burning also has a long tradition in the Black Forest. In many respects it behaved with it quite similarly as with the glassblowing. In the Black Forest, not only was quartz for glass production sought early on, but also copper, iron and even silver. For their further processing, great heat was needed, for which the burning of bare wood, as the glassblowers did, was no longer sufficient. For this purpose, there were charcoal burners, who prepared the wood in such a way that it was charred, its energy density was increased, so that it radiated higher temperatures when burned. The charcoal burner built a kiln from a cone-shaped pile of logs, which was then covered with brushwood and sealed with earth and moss. Only one opening remained, through which some embers were pushed into the interior of the charcoal kiln. This ember then had to gradually spread to the wood in the pile and smolder it. It was important that the temperature inside remained constant. The wood was not allowed to burn, but only to smolder in order to become coal. Since charcoal burning was a very dirty trade, charcoal burners usually enjoyed a rather bad reputation, for which, however, they could not help. This circumstance was taken up by the writer Wilhelm Hauff in his fairy tale "The Cold Heart". In this fairy tale, the poor charcoal burner Peter Munk has three wishes from the little glass man, a good forest spirit. He squanders two of them on wealth, which is why the third is initially denied him. Therefore, Peter turns to another, evil spirit, who grants him even more money, but puts a stone instead of a heart as the price. As Peter becomes increasingly stingy and callous, even neglecting his mother and killing his wife in anger, he wants his heart back, but does not get it back from the evil forest spirit. Instead, the good one helps him with some advice. So Peter seeks out the evil spirit again and accuses him that the cold stone heart is not working properly. The evil forest spirit does not want to believe this and gives him back his real heart as a comparison. No sooner has this happened than the good forest spirit grants Peter protection and reunites him with his mother and his revived wife. By the way, there is a Hauff Fairy Tale Museum in Baiersbronn, which is dedicated to this fairy tale and to the author himself. The charcoal burners soon had a similar fate as the glass blowers. Since they needed a lot of wood for their work, they had to clear more and more forests and adapt their charcoal kilns to the location of the available forest. Thus, they too caused the almost complete clear-cutting of the Black Forest towards the end of the nineteenth century.

Return Schluchsee Dam Black Forest water power Lake Schluchsee near the community of the same name is a popular destination for tourists, as it offers ample opportunities for swimming and sailing. It is located at 930 meters above sea level and its deepest point measures sixty-one meters. It is 7.5 kilometers long and 1.5 kilometers wide. Thus, it is the largest lake in the Black Forest. To the west of it, there are two high mountains to admire, the Schnepfhalde, which is 1,282 meters high, and the Habsberg with 1,274 meters. You can hike the entire shore once on a circular path. In its present form, lake Schluchsee has only existed since 1932, when a 63-meter-high dam was built to raise the level of the lake for the use of hydroelectric power plants. The Schwarza stream, one of the inflows, was dammed until the water level had risen by thirty meters. Since then, lake Schluchsee has been Germany's highest reservoir. However, quite a few residents had to leave their homes forever for its elevation, as the shore areas were flooded. Even an old post road and a school building disappeared in the water. Today, electricity is generated with a capacity of about 520 million kilowatt hours per year. The main part of the entire power plant complex is underground. Water flows from the lake Schluchsee through three power plant stages in the direction of the Rhine, falling a total of more than 610 meters and covering a distance of about 25 kilometers. In order to supply the Schluchsee with sufficient water, this is pumped up from the Rhine in the other direction. In addition, part of the water is tapped from the upper course of the river Wutach, the Seebach. Since the water supplied from the Rhine is mostly warmer than that of the Schwarza, lake Schluchsee rarely freezes over in winter, and when it does, the ice is quite brittle. Ice skating is therefore not possible. Since the water level of the Schluchsee has to be reduced occasionally, for example to carry out maintenance work on the power plant complex, there is often discord between the power plant operators and the tourist industry, which would like to keep the level of the lake constant so that swimming and sailing can continue. Besides, the drained shores don't look very nice. Not far from the dam wall is the village of Seebrugg, which is the terminus of the Dreiseenbahn railroad. There is a diving station, from where you can make dives in the lake. If you want to enjoy a beautiful view of lake Schluchsee during a visit, you can do so from the approximately thirty meter high Riesenbühlturm, which is a tower located not far from the village of Schluchsee. If you prefer tobogganing, you can do that in the Rodel-und-Sapßpark, by the way, also in summer. In Schluchsee there furthermore is the "flower path", where you can admire various works of art made of flowers. Source: Schluchseewerk AG

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Return Milchhäusle Quite clever, the Black Forest people: A refrigerator without electricity Most of the Black Forest farmhouses are located on mountain slopes near springs. It is not uncommon for the farms to have a characteristic feature. From the spring, pipes made of wooden logs ran to a trough located not far from the main house. This trough has a wooden – rarely stone – superstructure that resembles a miniature house on stilts. In fact, it is a kind of refrigerator. It gets its cold from the flowing water of the spring, which has an almost constant temperature all year round. In this superstructure, called "Milchhäusle" ("little milk house"), the Black Forest farmers could store their milk in a cool place even on warm days. In addition to milk, other perishable goods were stored there. The farmers of those days washed in the trough, since there was otherwise no running water in the house. Last but not least, the trough had the advantage that fire-fighting water was available at a short distance from the farm in case a fire broke out. In addition to perishable food, grain also had to be stored in a protected manner. For this purpose, there were special granaries that protected it from moisture, especially from precipitation, as well as from pests. Such a granary must, on the one hand, ensure constant ventilation and, on the other hand, be built in such a way that the stored grain can be shifted as easily as possible.

Return Wutach Gorge Adventurous and wild The Wutach Gorge, cut between sixty and one hundred and seventy meters deep, is the epitome of a nature reserve in Germany. It stretches for 35 kilometers between Neustadt and Achdorf, and the area from Kappel to Wutach has been a nature reserve since 1939. The fascinating thing about this area is not only the torrent with its unhindered course, but also the richness of species among plants and animals as well as the geological peculiarities. In fact, the Wutach Gorge is the only untouched low mountain stream in Germany and thus of immense importance from a landscape-historical point of view. From its source to its mouth in the Rhine, the total watercourse is 91 kilometers long and overcomes a difference in altitude of 1,125 meters. However, it is not called Wutach along its entire stretch. It rises at an altitude of 1,440 meters above sea level near Seebuck, the side mountain of the Feldberg, and is still called Seebach here. Thus, the source is only nine meters lower than the peak of Seebuck. A 62 meter high waterfall follows before the Seebach flows through the Feldsee on the northeastern flank of the Seebuck at 1,109 meters above sea level. Afterwards, the Seebach continues in the Bärental valley until it reaches the lake Titisee, which it also crosses. At the outflow, the watercourse is then called Gutach. It flows on to Neustadt until it meets the confluence of the Haslach shortly after the Gutach bridge of the Höllental Railways. The river Wutach is formed here by the confluence of Gutach and Haslach not far from Kappel. Shortly before the two waters meet, their valleys already become gorge-like and are deeply incised. There the nature reserve begins in both valleys. The Wutach winds only briefly through the gorge before another gorge enters from the north, the Rötenbachschlucht. From here, the Wutach turns south and flows as far as the Räuberschlössle before continuing its course to the east. After a while, the Lotenbachklamm gorge opens up to the south, containing four waterfalls of up to eight meters in height, as well as a side stream, which in turn plunges into the gorge from a height of twenty meters. Very close to the confluence of the Lotenbachklamm and the Wutacht Gorge is the Schattenmühle. There you can fortify yourself in an inn before continuing your hike. Downstream the landscape changes. The river Wutach leaves the upper gorge and enters a valley with a wider bottom. Whereas the bedrock was previously granite with an upper layer of red sandstone, it now consists of shell limestone. From here one reaches Dietfurt and further to the former Bad Boll, where from the south the Boller waterfall pours into the Wutach, with its two steps and a drop height of forty meters the highest waterfall within the Wutach Gorge. Not far away follows the Tannegg waterfall. On the other side of the river is an 84 meter long cave called Münzloch. The rock walls are now increasingly made of limestone. The mosses that grow on them extract carbonic acid from the calcareous water, causing the limestone to solidify and form as sintered rock. After Bad Boll the valley narrows considerably, this is called the Middle Gorge. The hiking trail now runs above the river Wutach, nestled against the rock face. This takes you to the Schurhammerhütte, where you have the opportunity to take a break. On its further way, the Wutach inclines to the northeast and partially seeps into the subsoil. In very dry phases, the above-ground river bed can even dry up completely. After the Rümmelesteg, the Wutach flows eastward again, and about two kilometers after the seepage, the water emerges again after having flowed through a cave system. From the north, the Gauchach meets the river shortly after. The Gauchach Gorge is also protected until shortly before Döggingen. From the confluence of the Gauchach it is not far to the Wutachmühle, where the Wutach Gorge nature reserve ends. In its further course, the Wutach turns southwest with the so-called "Wutachknie" ("Wutach knee") near Achdorf and leaves the Black Forest. In its lower valley follows the Lower Gorge, the so-called "Wutachflühen". This section extends between Achdorf and Grimmelshofen. In addition, the river now forms the border between Germany and Switzerland for about six kilometers in two sections before it flows into the Rhine at a sea level of 315 meters. The fact that the Wutach Gorge was a considerable traffic obstacle in the past can be seen in a difference between the Black Forest dialects north and south of it. In the north, the "K" at the beginning of a word (e.g. "Kasten" ("box")) is pronounced as in Standard High German, so in dialect one says "Kaschte". In the south, however, it becomes "Ch" (as in "rauchen"). There it is consequently called "Chaschte". What makes the Wutach Gorge very interesting for geologists are the constant changes that take place there. Thus, in the course of the last decades, rocks have collapsed or slipped several times, and the landscape is in constant motion. All these processes can be observed here unhindered, that is, without man interfering with them or stopping them. Thus, the Wutach Gorge provides valuable information for the study of geological events. It is worth mentioning that from the Seebach more than half of its water is tapped just above the mouth into the Feldsee. It is diverted into the lake Schluchsee and ultimately fed to the hydroelectric system there. In addition to the Wutach Gorge, there are other gorge-like valleys in the Black Forest. Particularly impressive is the four-kilometer-long Ravenna Gorge, a constriction above the valley Höllental. It contains two waterfalls, the larger one has a drop of 16 meters. Course of the Sauschwänzlebahn not far from the Wutach Gorge

Return St. Blasien Cathedral Big and splendid The town of St. Blasien is located in the southwestern part of the Black Forest, in an area known as the Hotzenwald. Its western border is formed by the river Wehra, the eastern one by the river Schwarza, which also flows through the Schluchsee. In fact, St. Blasien is not far from this lake. St. Blasien is best known for its imposing cathedral, which dominates the townscape from afar. It has existed in its present form since 1783 and is modeled on the Roman Pantheon, reaching a total height of 62 meters. Its dome, which spans 36 meters and is the third largest in Europe, is outstanding. The master builder, the Frenchman Pierre Michel d'Ixnard, also had a well-known model for it, namely the Michelangelo dome of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. The dome in St. Blasien consists of two interlocking shells supported by twenty Corinthian columns. At its outer top is a golden sphere complete with a cross. There is also a gallery that runs along the twenty columns. A peculiarity: if the dome were to be completed in its curvature downwards, that is, if a round sphere were to be formed from it, its lowest point would be exactly on the floor of the church. The dome provides pleasant acoustics, so that the St. Blasien Cathedral is nowadays often used for concerts. At the front of the circular building, which the dome spans, six columns rise, as well as on its outer side two thirty-meter towers, which house a total of ten bells. The last one was added only in 2005. Already early there was a church on the same place. It is said to have been consecrated for the first time between 1088 and 1104. However, it was severely damaged by a fire in 1322 and during the Peasant Wars, so that it had to be rebuilt and consecrated a second time in 1538. But again there was destruction and fire, the last time in 1768, but since its last rebuilding in 1783 the cathedral has remained undamaged. The noble family of the Habsburgs has a crypt in the cathedral, where several bones are buried. The name of the place St. Blasien goes back to St. Blasius of Sebaste, who died as a martyr in 316. Also worth seeing is the courthouse of the village. There you can admire a sundial from the Baroque period.

Return Tannery Today only street names remind of this craft Tanning is a very old craft that can be traced back to the Stone Age. This is not surprising, because even then there were simple stone tools for scraping and cutting, as well as skins that were pulled from hunted animals. The tannery processes the animal skins and makes leather from them. Especially in the Middle Ages, leather was very important for making clothes, which is why tanning was a common craft. Just as old as tanning is the use of wool from domesticated sheep. Cotton, which is widely used today, is also old, but did not spread globally until the beginning of the nineteenth century. Tanning was a matter of strengthening the animal skin so that it became leather. If it was peeled off, it quickly dried out, and if it came into contact with water, it even threatened to rot. To prevent these processes, tanning agents were used. In the beginning, these were fats or oils, and later on, they were also used in the form of oil of tran or tree bark extracts. However, tanners suffered from a bad reputation, because those who worked with animal hides ran the risk of catching diseases such as anthrax through the decomposition process or via the pathogens contained in the hides. In addition, the hides and the tanning agents sometimes spread very bad odors, which is why the tanners were shunned. In Schiltach, there is the Schüttesäge Museum, which is dedicated not only to rafting but also to the historical development of tanning in the Black Forest. Apart from that, this traditional craft has been preserved in several names. Villingen, for example, is not the only town to have a "Gerberstarße" ("tanner's street").

Return Wildlife The animals of the region and a not always popular homecomer With its many forests, the Black Forest provides a habitat for a wide variety of animal species. Probably the most common are roes, wild boars and foxes. Roes are very numerous in the Black Forest. They grow to a maximum length of 1.30 meters and a height of 75 centimeters and, as can be easily determined to be related to deer, but smaller than them. Thus, the roebuck also has a kind of antlers, which is shed in the fall and grows back over the winter. It gets new forked ends every year, so that a roebuck has up to six tips on its horns, three on each side. Roes have reddish-brown fur in summer and more grayish-brown in winter. Young fawns are born in early June. They are hidden in the grass and left there in case of danger. So it can happen that you find such a fawn in the forest, because its mother has fled from you. In this case you must not touch the fawn, otherwise the mother will not accept it. Roes live mostly in small groups and are mainly nocturnal, as they are too often disturbed in the forest during the day. Foxes are distantly related to dogs and have reddish-brown fur, which is much lighter on the belly, and a bushy tail. They eat mice and birds' eggs, occasionally hares and fawns, besides rarely fruits or mushrooms. They inhabit underground burrows, which have several entrances, so that the fox can escape unnoticed in case of danger. As almost everywhere in Germany, there are wild boars in the Black Forest. There is a reason for this. These animals rarely shy away from a natural boundary in their search for new territories. If necessary, they will even swim through wide bodies of water. Even a highway is hardly an obstacle. Wild boars live in groups, called rods, of related females, who are joined by their young, called freshets. Male wild boars may approach the rods only during mating season. Wild boars can see poorly, but hear and smell well. With their noses they detect worms, insects and small animals, even under the surface of the ground. They often then rummage up the ground to get at their food. This causes displeasure among farmers when the wild boars dig up the fields, but it is very beneficial for the forest, because not only is the soil loosened, but root pests such as the white grub are also eaten. Wild boars love to bathe and then wallow in the mud. This helps them get rid of pesky insects. The lynx, which has spread from Switzerland to the Black Forest, and the beaver have immigrated again. The large, very busy rodent was first settled on the upper Danube, from where it has moved upstream into the Black Forest valleys. Apart from its considerable overall length of up to one meter and a weight of up to thirty kilograms, the beaver impresses above all with its building activities. In a body of water it builds a beaver's lodge out of brushwood and mud, i.e. a burrow in which it gives birth to its young and hides them. In order to protect the beaver's lodge, its entrance is always under water. However, since a body of water changes its water level depending on the season and the weather, the beaver itself intervenes in the course. To do this, it builds dams to dam up the water and regulate the water level. If the water level rises too high, the beaver opens the dam and releases water. This keeps its lodge inaccessible to other predators. The beaver is also a very good swimmer. Unfortunately, in some places it also causes trouble with its building activities, for example when it puts meadows under water because it has built a dam. It also needs trees, which it cuts down with its nail teeth. Most people in the Black Forest, however, are happy about the busy homecomer. Nowadays, the Black Forest is about 75% forested. That sounds like quite a lot, but is it true? In fact, there is a lot of forest area, but if you take a closer look at it, you will notice that it is very closely interrupted, mostly by roads. Thus, it can be said that there is only a limited amount of contiguous, large-scale forest in the Black Forest, a circumstance that limits and endangers native wildlife.

Return Mill There is a mill in the Black Forest valley. The river courses of the Black Forest with their sometimes considerable gradients have been suitable for the use of water power since early times. This is a very old method of energy generation and is documented as early as the fifth century BC. The first grain mills were built in the third century BC. In the Black Forest, the use of water power initially took place through conventional mills, which were mainly used for grain processing in agriculture. In addition, hammer mills and saws for woodworking were also powered by water. They were all built on the slopes where the gradient of the water is greatest and thus develops the most kinetic energy. In the milling process, the dedusted grain is poured into a hopper from which the grains gradually fall between two millstones. One of the millstones stands on the ground and weighs up to ten kilograms. Above this is a second stone, which weighs about half as much. This is moved by means of water power. The grains, which are ground by friction, pass into a drum, which is also turned by the mill wheel and acts like a sieve. Since the upper rock layer in the Black Forest is sandstone, the millstones were also made of this material. Sawmills were needed to process wood as a building material. Until the nineteenth century, wood was the material used to make the majority of utensils such as dishes and containers. It was also, and above all, of central importance for the construction of houses. In the region you can often find trade names with the component "saw", for example often a "Sägedobel" ("small saw valley"). You can admire a very old Black Forest mill in the Simonswald valley, namely the Hexenlochmühle. The same is true for the Rankmühle in St. Märgen. The Mönchhof sawmill in Waldachtal can be visited. It was built as early as the fifteenth century and is still in its original condition, i.e. it is also functional. Also worth seeing is the Großjockenmühle, which was built in 1883 at the entrance to the Ravenna Gorge. It has a structural peculiarity: the water for the mill wheel is not supplied from the outside, but flows through the roof. The Kobisenmühle near St. Georgen is also worth a look. It has been restored and can be visited. It is interesting that it has two grinding gears. In the course of time, the sawmills in particular were converted to steam operation; today, of course, they run on electricity.

Return Black Forest Valley Where there are mountains, there are valleys. In the Black Forest there are many mountains with a height of over 1,000 meters. In total, there are over a hundred. But where such high mountains rise, there are of course also valleys. On the west side of the Black Forest, i.e. from the direction of the Upper Rhine Graben, these are cut deeply into the flanks of the mountains. On the eastern side, on the other hand, they slope down rather flat and hill-like, and the differences in elevation between mountain and valley are smaller. On the slopes especially of the Upper Black Forest as well as the elevations of the Northern Black Forest, there were glaciers during the last ice age, which had formed some cirque lakes due to their gradual runoff and the gravel carried in them. In the depressions, due to the gradual erosion by the watercourses, mostly the gneiss comes to light, which in combination with several granite bodies, such as the one in Triberg, forms the basement of the Black Forest, while the mountains consist of an overburden layer, which is variegated stone. On the western side, i.e. towards the Upper Rhine Graben, the bedrock is much more prominent than on the eastern side. On the western side, the streams and rivers carry more water than towards the east. In general, the red sandstone layer is stronger in the Northern Black Forest than in the Southern Black Forest. The water of the Black Forest valleys flows into the Rhine or the Danube. Thus, the main European watershed is also partly located in the Black Forest, has its westernmost bulge here. Some of the river sources are enclosed like wells, especially the Danube source near Donaueschingen, as well as the Neckar, Enz, Pregnitz and Berkel sources. The longest river within the Black Forest is the Enz, at 105 kilometers. A few rivers have changed their course in the past, for example the Wutach. In times about 70,000 years ago it was still a tributary of the Danube, which can be seen from its eastern course in its upper reaches. Only at Achdorf it bends with the so-called "Wutach knee" by 100 degrees to the south and then approaches the Rhine. The valley of the Elz also makes a tight bend as it winds around the mountain Gschasikopf. Another valley is famous not so much for geological reasons, but for television: The Glottertal provided the backdrop for the soap opera "Die Schwarzwaldklinik", which was very popular in the eighties. Even though the series is no longer running, the Glottertal is worth a visit. The Höllental is worth seeing because of its narrow incisions. In it, the Höllental Railway, named after it, winds its way from Freiburg up to Titisee-Neustadt. At its upper end is the four-kilometer-long Ravenna Gorge, which is very primal with its waterfalls. The 25-kilometer-long Simonswald Valley with its slopes up to 700 meters high is also rather wild. It contains a ban forest area and the forty meter high Zweribacher waterfalls. One of the most striking valleys and at the same time the border between the northern and southern Black Forest is the Kinzig Valley. Near Hausach, it lies 550 meters lower than the surrounding mountains and is relatively wide. Together with its tributaries, the river Kinzig forms the most water-rich and widely branched body of water in the Black Forest. Here, as well as in the side valleys, mining took place early on; cobalt and silver were mined near Schenkenzell. This valley was already developed by the Romans through the Kinzigtal road. There are also several caves that you can visit, such as the Erdmannshöhle in Hasel.

Return (Black Forest) cuckoo clock "Cuckoo, cuckoo" calls from the clock. The cuckoo clock is the symbol of the Black Forest par excellence. The wall clock in the shape of a little house, from which a cuckoo peeps out through a flap and proclaims the hour, is known all over the world and a popular souvenir for tourists to Germany from other countries. It is believed that a first form of the Black Forest cuckoo clock was created around 1738 in the workshop of Franz Anton Ketterer, a clock-maker from Schönwald. Possibly, however, the idea goes back to Ketterer's father. Michael Dilger from Neukirch and Matthäus Hummel are also said to have built cuckoo clocks in the Black Forest as early as 1742. Of Friedrich Dilger, at least, it is known that he deepened his knowledge of clockmaking in France in 1712. Whether the concept of a clock with a bird call originally came from the Black Forest can no longer be determined with certainty. It is said that the Elector Johann Georg I of Saxony already had a clock with a cuckoo call in his collection anno 1619. There is also an artistically decorated clock with a crowing rooster in the Strasbourg Cathedral. This might have been an inspiration for the cuckoo clock. At the time of the clock-makers Ketterer, Dilger and Hummel, the cuckoo clock did not look like it does today. It was initially a wooden clock with a cuckoo call in the form of two small organ pipes. The external design of the cuckoo clock, which is known all over the world and is common today, is the result of an initiative of Robert Gerwig. From 1850 to 1857, the ingenious designer of the Black Forest and Höllental Railways was the first director of the Duke of Baden's Clock-making School in Furtwangen, which had been founded in 1850 specifically for the needs of small clock-makers in order to provide a counterweight to the increasingly industrial mass production of clocks. In a kind of competition, Gerwig searched for designs for new, contemporary clock models and the result was the so-called "Bahnhäusleuhr" ("railroad cottage clock"), whose main characteristic is the sloping roof. Designed by Friedrich Eisenlohr, it is essentially modeled on a railroad guard's cottage, which was something very modern at the time. Over the years, various workshops added all sorts of ornaments and sometimes elaborate carvings to this basic concept, so that the cuckoo clock is always individually designed, despite its railroad cottage shape. There are even versions that, in addition to the cuckoo, have more figures that move or indicate the quarter hours by call. Most cuckoo clocks are quite small, only one is very huge. It is located in Triberg and is over fifteen meters high. Its movement weighs close to six tons, but the greatest thing is that you can enter its interior. Isn't that great? It's like a look-through puzzle, only big.