April 16, 2009: We Go to the Toilet Museum

This morning I woke up and headed down to meet my parents for breakfast. The lady who runs the hotel served us some eggs and Mom took the opportunity to re-state how much she liked the place. Breakfast was great.

 

We all piled into the Mercedes and drove off to explore some of the locations in the Black Forest that the hotel owner recommended. On the way we took a wrong turn and ended up going through a 1.85km tunnel; at the far end of the tunnel there was a sign for the Duravit Design Center. I had no idea what this was but Mom apparently did and soon we were in the parking lot.

 

The front of the building was clad with stainless steel panels and to the top left of the building there was a MASSIVE door with a huge toilet inside. I soon discovered that Duravit designs enamel bathroom parts. We walked in to the place and were happy to discover that there was no entry fee to take a look around. The first floor was essentially a toilet showroom with showers, sinks, bathtubs and, of course, toilets. This was fun. The different floors all had different exhibits from toilet design, manufacturing and, of course, lots of toilets. We got back to the main floor after a whirlwind walk about, bought some Duravit pencils and got into the car to head off to the next destination.

 

The next stop was the historical village. It was a setup similar to the Heritage Park of Calgary except way older. The oldest building was built in 1624! There was everything from an old school sawmill to a grain mill to a really short guy that made whistles. I even bought some wool socks from a lady who was probably pushing 100 promptly realizing that the desired recipient of the socks is allergic to wool; my mom now has the socks.

 

To get back to the future after the historical village we went to check out a sort of rollercoaster that was on the side of a hill nearby. It was a strange setup, each person sat in a sort of go-kart that was on two rails. After climbing up the hill with the aid of a wire winch each person got to take their cart down the track and choose how fast they went by applying the brake. The first time I got caught behind what my dad calls “a plumber”, a term meaning a person who drives slow; that run was a bit slow but the second run I got the true feel of it, it was a good time.

 

For lunch we stopped in the historical town of Gegenbach and had lunch in a building that was built in the year 1350. After lunch we had a sauna in the hotel swimming area, I watched some Southpark and we got some eats at the town restaurant. We got home and got to bed.