How many half-timbered houses can you cram into the less than 19 square kilometers of the town of Haslach im Kinzigtal? Enough to earn it a place on the Deutsche Fachwerkstraße, or German Framework Road.
In the shadow of the half-timbered houses is Haslach’s weekly market. How nice… a chance to shop in an outdoor market with all those historic houses — makes you feel like you’re living a fairytale.
The framework buildings aren’t the only ones to look at. The biggest attraction in town is its Kapuzinerkloster (Capuchin Monastery). While it’s an amazing piece of real estate, with all sorts of chapels, it isn’t a medieval monastery. No, this one came to be during the midst of the raging Thirty Years’ War in 1630.
FYI, Haslach’s Kapuzinerkloster is thought to be the best monastery of the Order in South Germany. Pretty cool considering the French plundered the hell out of it in 1795.
Within the monastery is the Schwarzwälder Trachtenmuseum (Black Forest Costume Museum). More specifically, it’s housed in the former convent. A curious place to put a bunch of brightly colored historical costumes, I would say.
This ain’t a one-horse town, in case you’re wondering. There’s als the Hansjakob Museum. And you can always take a trip to the former silver mine.
As dark as the mines could be, so it seems like winter. Good thing Haslach has festivals during the cold winter months to brighten and warm the days and nights. Carnival (held right before Ash Wednesday) is celebrated in the Swabian-Alemannic style (think Fools, funny masks, that sort of thing); while February 22nd is the annual Storchentag where sweets and other goodies are given out to children.
Hey, I’m a big kid — send the chocolate this way. ;-)
Doesn’t this sound like a great place? Yeah, I thought so too.
If you want to learn or do more, the folks at the Tourist Information Center do a better job of it than I ever could. They’re located at Klosterstrasse 1, and I’ll tell ’em to look out for you — that is, if you don’t get sidetracked looking at all the half-timbered houses.