Life is an adventure - A blog about traveling and friends

 The first trip to Frankenstein Castle in Odenwald was not a success, the castle could not be visited during the Corona lockdown and there was no possibility to see unless trespassing. So, I went another time, but this time together with Dorian. I selected a bike route using the Koomot app which turned out to be not the best one....the bike route was meant for mountain biking and not normal biking, but we managed in the end. The only thing I did not manage was biking up the hill to the castle. I didn't manage the first time when I biked there and I knew I will not manage the second time, but pushing the bike was no problem as long as I get to enjoy the ride downhill. :D The castle is more of a ruin...but is nice and gives you a wonderful view of the area around. We even had a nice beer at the top and enjoyed our time there a bit. 

A truly magnificent sight, lots of huge rocks in a valley, is befitting the name of sea of rocks (aka Felsenmeer in German). After we moved to Darmstadt, I tried to find the most interesting areas to visit around, and Felsenmeer was one of those places. How exactly this sea of rocks formed I am not certain, but it seems a process that took many years.  The area now is quite popular, people often trying to either climb up or down the rocks. We went down, and although it can be fun jumping from one rock to another, it can also be dangerous.  Felsenmeer We did a round hike (11 km) around the area, where we saw many horses, and sheep, beautiful flowers, lots of stones, passed a tower called Owl Tower but did not see any owls.....passed a pond.....and had a lovely hike through the forest. Although the Felsenmeer was quite busy with people, the rest of the hike was nice and quiet.  Owl tower Find the frog

 A quick after-work trip to another lake not far from Darmstadt. The lake is smaller than Erlensee, and dirtier. When we arrived there we decided we do not want to swim in the lake as the water was muddy and impossible to see anything under the water. There were many kids playing in the lake and some people swimming, we decided to find a nice place at the lake with no one around us.  Steinrodsee On the way to Steinrodsee, we passed another pond which is called Kleewoog von Gräfenhausen, which was pretty with all the water lilies. We also saw small cute frogs around the pond, making the entire area look so magical and beautiful. Kleewoog von Gräfenhausen Find the frog

Actually, this post will have two posts in one, but since each does not have many photos, I decided to put them together.  The first one was a walk in a forest not far from where we live, and since one of the photos turned out pretty nice, considering the photos are taken with a phone I decided to share the photos. maybe Hypericum perforatum The second one is about a bike trip to Erlensee, a lake nearby Pfungstadt. The lake is quite pretty with clean dark blue water, somehow it reminds me of Ossiacher See in Austria, but smaller and without any houses around.  Pfungstädter Moorsee Erlensee

The last day was a bit shorter, only 13 km, also the weather was not the best so I made the hiking trip a bit shorter. When we left in the morning, it was cloudy and soon after it started drizzling.  Our first stop was a small, but beautiful waterfall, called Falkauer, most probably because it is in Falkau.  The next stop was Titisee, again lots of people everywhere. Initially, when I planned the trip, I wanted to go swimming here as well, but since the weather was not so nice we just enjoyed the view of the lake. The village was full of German tourists, so we did not stay long. I just stopped to buy some postcards and some magnets for the fridge. Dorian was in a bad mood since morning; since morning he had a strong allergy, like constantly sneezing, which I think is not pleasant to experience. We were supposed to drive to Strasbourg before heading back to Darmstadt, but due to Dorian's allergy, we decided to go back to Darmstadt.  After 3 days in the Black Forest, I can ...