So in classic fashion the daily updates of the euro trip that were meant to occur in real time, didn’t happen. Why? Well to put it simply, I was busy doing the travelling to lock down the 30/40 minutes to open my laptop and spew the day’s adventure onto WordPress. Which, I have no regrets on whatsoever as it meant I enjoyed the travels in real time without the stress of trying to squeeze a blog post out at the end of an exhausting yet exhilarating day of being out in Europe. This is why, almost 3 weeks since my last post, I am continuing with the story where we left off. These post are now recap posts of what happened whilst on the Euro trip as we are unfortunately now back home. Thankfully we do go back to France next week so my plan is to get these blog posts out before we leave (or at least have the scheduled to post whilst I am away again!)
Anyway, enough of me explaining myself and let me pick up where we left off after day 4. Back to Bad Herrenalb in the heart of the Black Forest, Germany…
We awoke the morning after (check the last blog post if you’re a little lost on the events) and Laura had some pretty gnarly looking blisters on her feet. I would have liked to have ran but after my previous week’s 80km and the previous day’s hills we decided to go on a morning pre-breakfast hike. Our Airbnb was in such a good location that meant we walked out the front door and were immediately on the walking path. We headed up to a viewpoint which was 694m in elevation, combining the view with the lovely morning sunrise made for an incredibly powerful feeling. Sometimes its good to change things up and although it didn’t feel as much of a workout as a run does, a 2 hour hike that is 5km of up-hill work still makes for an effective sweat-out.
Upon returning we wasted no time to, of course, make out oats. Again, we chose to add the classic mixers (blueberries, strawberries and banana) in with half a bar of Ritter Sport each – the flavour choice being Laura’s favourite – Schoko Brownie. A solid 10/10 from me also.
We then headed back to Bad Herrenalb’s outdoor pool which was a lot quieter than it had been the previous day. The lack of young kids diving into the pool meant we got a good workout swim in. An easy 2km (80 lengths) later and we decided to get a traditional german pretzel for lunch from the local bakery. This quickly became a common occurrence of the trip.
Once fully noshed, we got in the car and took to one of our top-of-the-list destinations for this trip – the one and only Ritter Sport factory in Waldenberg. Just outside Stuttgart lies my Charlie Bucket in Willy Wonka dream building that produces arguably one of the best chocolates on planet earth. Laura and I spent the entire journey to the factory listening to the Willy Wonka soundtrack, blasting out “come with me, and you’ll be in a world of pure imagination…”. A true sentiment for how we felt when we entered the factory experience’s shop, which we managed to spend a sold 80 euros on chocolate in.
Seeing as we were so close, we popped quickly into Stuttgart, deciding to pick up a cactus from Urban Outfitters. This may seem a little random but it is something Laura and I do regularly – trying to collect as many cactuses from stores in as many places as possible. We named our German cactus Alfred Ritter, after the man behind Ritter Sport of course. One thing we did encounter whilst in Stuttgart was the pride festival antics, whilst I am all for what pride is about, I was quickly reminded of how much I prefer the peace and quiet of the forest over the hustle bustle and manic vibe of the city.
Back to Bad Herrenalb with our treasure chest of chocolate gold, we headed to bed with an episode of Prison Break. What a day.
Stay tuned for more,
BG.
benedict. 