Rhine River - Day 9 - Black Forest and Colmar France

Friday Dec 16th represented our last full day on the river boat.  We docked at the small port town of Breisach Germany and after breakfast headed off on buses to the Black Forest.

Leaving the river boat.

Germany celebrates the equivalent of Mardi Gras but they call it Carnival. This sculpture depicts the jester that this particular town uses during the celebration.  Dressing up in masks, they walk around with stinky goat or pig guts on the end of a stick and whack unsuspecting people with them.  One can only presume a large amount of drinking is involved to make that tolerable.

This was the clock shop we went to visit.  These clock makers actually visited our ship the night before and raffled off a free hand carved Cuckoo Clock.  Tina ended up winning and we found out on this visit that the clock sells for approximately $150 and shipping to the US adds another $30.  Not a bad little prize at all.

This is purportedly the worlds 2nd largest Cuckoo Clock and the largest one in Germany.  I'll show more of this later.

Amazing hand carved details on this clock.  This one was going for $1500.

Wall after wall after wall of incredible clocks.

As we left the clock shop we drove by the worlds largest toilet.  This company makes high end porcelain fixtures and obviously had a sense of humor when building this facility.

We stopped at the top of one of the mountain passes for some picture taking.  Renewable energy is turning into big business in Germany since they've dictated that all remaining 8 nuke plants be shut down by 2022.  This was in response to the Japan nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi after the tsunami.

Far prettier than any silly wind turbine.

After lunch back on the ship we took off to explore Colmar France.

A different form of adult merry-go-rounds. 😆

A snow ski Christmas tree.

 

The decorations on this store evidently change throughout the year, but it's always an extravagant display similar to this.

This is a sculpture of the founder of Colmar.  The sculpture was done by Musee Bartholdi who was born and raised in this town.  He's most famously known for designing the Statue of Liberty.

Just another balmy day in France.

Every major town has to have it's own Gothic Cathedral.

These types of humorous shop signs show up through out the city.  This one is for a pork butcher and shows the butcher reading the scripture to a pig on the left before cutting him and and presenting him as ham on the right.  At least the pig should have died at peace with him self.

As promised, one last look at that huge Cuckoo Clock in the Black Forest

So until next time, stay clear of those crazy Cuckoo Clocks.