Querweg photo dump 5: Blumberg to Engen

Saturday May 21

We detoured off the Querweg, first to stop by the post office to mail the key back to Schattenmuehle, and second to find breakfast. (Most hotels in Germany include a free breakfast, but our room in Blumberg did not.) 

Overall, I found Blumberg a strange place, in ways similar to Kappel, with an emphasis on pavement that makes the area largely empty of plant life. (You can see the downtown-wide black-and-white checkerboard pavement pattern in several of the photos at the end of the previous Querweg post.) Written records date Blumberg's long-gone Schloss (destroyed 1644, demolished 19th century, remains removed 1967), back to ca. 1218, but little architectural evidence remains of Blumberg's medieval origins. The city experienced a 10-fold increase in population between 1935 (pop. 700) and 1942 (pop. 7,000) as forced labor camps were established to extract iron ore from nearby mines. It has the look of having been bombed and rebuilt, yet Blumberg avoided being bombed during the war thanks to its proximity to neutral Switzerland.

Before she went on to co-found the anti-Nazi Weisse Rose movement as a college student in Munich, Sophie Scholl did a six-month civil-service stint at a daycare in Blumberg. Her descriptions of the experience paint a bleak picture.

Nonetheless, the post office in 2022 was nice enough, as was breakfast at the Jim Knoepfle bakery across from the railway museum for the Sauschwaenzlebahn (Pig-Tail Line; the railway route originated as a way to move military supplies through the Black Forest in the late 1800s).

But back to the Querweg. We determined to catch up with the trail far enough west not to miss the Blauer Stein, a nature preserve / volcanic rock formation on the top of a hill. 

Our detour to the Blauer Stein

The Blauer Stein is geologic wonder, to be sure, although we were a little disappointed by its relative lack of expansiveness.

Too tiny to build a fortress atop, but geologically interesting nonetheless

Heading down from the hilltop, we appreciated the appreciation for bees...

The Querweg passed through tiny town Riedoeschingen...

...where green energy is a NIMBY effort in at least one yard. The sign below says "Protect nature! No wind energy in the woods!"; click on the image to see preposterously humongous wind turbines depicted on the hills.

Of course, the hills are pretty without humongous turbines, and this is not my back yard. The U.S. is so far behind Germany in green energy, I'd be delighted to have a view of wind turbines back home.  

Atop one of the hills, guck mal! (Look here!): who doesn't like regional, organic, pesticide-free grain?

...and happy pollinators and solar farms?

We found a nice view for lunch...

The pointy hills as far as the eye can see are all former volcanic vents. Twelve hundred or so years ago, they offered convenient spots for fortresses, making the Hegau one of the most fortification-dense regions of Germany (380 hilltop fortifications within a 20km radius). Although we were now well beyond the steep mountains of the Schwarzwald, I needn't have worried that we were beyond scenic views. The Alter Post Weg section of the Querweg was one of the most beautiful legs of our entire trip.

From atop a hill, we had our first view of our final destination--Lake Constance. 

A first view of the Bodensee (Lake Constance) in the distance!

We kept scanning the horizon for a view of Engen, our destination for the evening, but never saw it until we were almost upon it, since it was always behind one hill or another. At last, after hiking 17 miles, we arrived at our overnight accommodation. An hour's rest later, we headed to the grocery store for fruit for the next day--another long hiking day, and a Sunday, so no opportunities to shop--then walked up to the Altstadt for dinner.

Easy to confuse with a Star of David, a six-pointed star in this context signifies a brewery:

Ta da!