Art La Flamme

We made a family trip to the Black Forest on Saturday to, of all things, buy a cuckoo clock. It seemed like the right thing to do, given the many, many years that we’ve lived in Germany.

As we were zipping along the side roads, listening to music and chatting away, the kids suddenly went nuts. With Kristin joining in, they were yammering away about something, speaking Ginglish — that half English, half German stuff they are want to do (and which always loses me).

I thought it was something about a ramen ball. Turns out it was a rodelbahn.

Say it with me. Row. Del. Bahn — like On, but with a bit of a “b” up front. Rodelbahn. You’re going to want to remember this word.

This particular one is the Schwarzwaldrodelbahn. It’s 1300 yards long, and it’s located right in the heart of the Black Forest. And it’s open year round.

So, yeah — rodelbahn. Think sledding, without the annoying cold. You can also think of this as a Mini Cooper S on the autobahn at full throttle, just without the mandated safety features, too. Both are pretty accurate descriptions of one of these things.

The mechanics of it all is pretty simply — two rails to ride on, two rails to which the brakes are applied (pull back on the handles), some netting sometimes to catch any loose items you might toss, and planks along the side to facilitate maintenance, I guess. Oh, and the obligatory surveillance cameras, that might just be there for show — no one said anything to me about my antics on the ride.

We opted to buy a dozen tickets, enough for us to go three times each. First time out, Katja (too small to ride on her own) rode with Kristin, and I rode solo and exceptionally fast. I mean, look at these things — there’s nothing to them, no mass, nothing to keep it from just rocketing along.

And the hill was a serious one, too. Not some springtime meadow. Not Iowa.

The second and third runs had Zavi and Kristin flying solo, while Katja rode with me. I had one hand on the brake, and one hand holding the video camera. That’s right, there are films, one / two of them (and be sure to check out some of the other rodelbahn videos, too.

So, while Katja and I were zipping along “with no brakes” — yeah, right! — Zavi was zipping along himself.

I can remember going on something like this, just without rails and any sense of safety, when we were back East when I was about his age (something like they went on a while ago). I can only hope that these memories stick with him like mine have. These are days when it’s great to be a kid, and when it’s great to have parents who will gladly drop 20 euros and an hour in the Black Forest to just do stuff like this.

And what’s not to love about that?

Yep, that’s my wife, going full throttle! You go, girl!

So, yeah. Rodelbahn. Awesome.

Oh, and we did buy a clock. We went to the ubiquitous House of a Thousand Clocks (which didn’t have 1000 clocks at that one location). Kristin has blogged that — I’ll spare you the repeat. I will share with you two pictures — one of the cuckoo clock that came in a close second place, and then the required parents / kids photo in front of the car. For the clock pictured below, at the top of the hour, the beer wench brings out fresh beer to the two guys at the table who are hoisting their beers / slamming them on the table. Nice. Classy. It would have been better only if she were topless, I should think.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 2nd, 2008 at 9:27 pm and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.