I was wrong.
On this cold, grey, and rainy Saturday, around 20 students met at the train station at 9:45 a.m. to head over to Bad Urach, a nearby town. This beautiful spot on earth has a waterfall and old castle ruins on top of the Swabian Alb that lets you look out of what seems like half of the country.
When people ask me what there is to do around the area, I absolutely recommend the Bad Urach waterfall and castle ruins as a must-do. Here is the lovely tourism website for the trails and waterfall of Bad Urach (a plug for this tourism agency - after my internship at Indiana Dunes Tourism, I realize how important these plugs are!).
We arrived at the small train station for the Bad Urach waterfall and got out. A guide was waiting there for us, and we were on our way! I found out that this tour that we were on was a hiking tour of the UNESCO Geopark on the Swabian Alb - that's a mouthful of a name, but it describes perfectly what we did.
On our walk to the first waterfall of Bad Urach
Our tour guide took us on about a ten kilometer (a little over six miles) walk around the park. He stopped every once in a while to explain how the park was formed, the types of rock in the area that were created because of the waterfalls, and about the limestone in the area - being from Northwest Indiana and living about an hour away from a limestone quarry, I was well-versed on the properties of limestone!
We walked along the creek towards the Bad Urach waterfall and up to the top.
At the top of the waterfall, there is a small kiosk for food and beverages. I had only ever gotten about halfway up the waterfall and had not realized that there was food and drinks available for purchase! This was a nice stop on our tour.
The Bad Urach waterfall.
At the top of the waterfall, there is a small kiosk for food and beverages. I had only ever gotten about halfway up the waterfall and had not realized that there was food and drinks available for purchase! This was a nice stop on our tour.
We continued on along another path to the very top of the Alb, into a volcano vent, and made our way back down to the bottom. We could not see very much from the top because of the weather - it was much like my trip up Mount Pilatus in that there was so much fog and not much visibility!
The top of the Swabian Alb.
The start of the Bad Urach waterfall!
Beautiful, old farm house in the middle of a field on the Alb.
On the way down, we saw the remains of a monastery (there was very little left), saw another beautiful waterfall with a small pool, and wandered on the edge of a slippery cliff to see how the waterfall, over many years, created a small cave.
I was so glad that I had gotten up for this tour. I had only ever seen probably 1/4 of the things that our tour guide showed us - there was so much of the park that I had not even realized was there!
Another example of this was when we stumbled upon a state-funded farm at the bottom of the Alb! The stables/house were beautiful. They breed horses there, Arabians being one type. Beautiful creatures!
Despite the weather being pretty dismal and the visibility just as bad, the day was a success!
We boarded our train around 15:30 and just started to feel our fingers again, when we looked out the window and saw sun and blue skies - as soon as we had left the park (after a day of grey and rain), the sun came out just as we left. We were speechless and could do nothing but laugh!
The second waterfall in Bad Urach
I was so glad that I had gotten up for this tour. I had only ever seen probably 1/4 of the things that our tour guide showed us - there was so much of the park that I had not even realized was there!
Another example of this was when we stumbled upon a state-funded farm at the bottom of the Alb! The stables/house were beautiful. They breed horses there, Arabians being one type. Beautiful creatures!
The state-funded farm at the bottom of the Alb
Beautiful horses occupy part of a field behind the barn/house
Once we reached the bottom, we all received small glasses with the name and symbol of the organization that our guide represented. We all got to sample some home-made cider that was made from the apples in the small fruit fields that are in this part of the Alb.
Ava, Emma, Lineke, me, and Allie with our cider
Despite the weather being pretty dismal and the visibility just as bad, the day was a success!
We boarded our train around 15:30 and just started to feel our fingers again, when we looked out the window and saw sun and blue skies - as soon as we had left the park (after a day of grey and rain), the sun came out just as we left. We were speechless and could do nothing but laugh!
On our train back, we made big plans to stop for some schnitzel in town. We were exhausted and hungry after our long day and could focus on little else.
As we were looking at the menu for Onkel Otto's (we had arrived at around 16:30), I made a terrible realization - in my exhaustion, I had forgotten I was to meet Veronica at the train station around 16:15!
I frantically looked for my phone, relieved that I had no missed calls or text messages. I decided to call Veronica to see if her train was delayed. She picked up and I found out that she had arrived just fine and made her way up to the university already. She, somehow, ran into Tammi and a few other students who she had met at pre-departure meetings and was hanging out with them for the time-being. Relief.
I had enough time to devour my XL schnitzel and potato salad (if you ever get to Reutlingen, I completely recommend this restaurant), grab a bus home, and take a hot shower.
Once we got Veronica settled into my room in Wurm-Haus, we went upstairs so she could meet some of my international friends. We had a girls night, and ended up making plans to visit Salzburg next weekend.
Overall, a very successful and fun Saturday!
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