Villingen-Schwenningen is two towns that were made to share a name in 1972, and they still do not quite agree. Villingen, to the west, is a medieval walled town in the Black Forest, with gates, towers and a minster, once part of Austria and proud of its carnival, the Fasnet, in which masked figures in elaborate wooden masks and painted costumes parade through the streets in a thunder of whips and bells. Schwenningen, to the east, is younger and more industrial, a clockmaking town that grew in the nineteenth century, and it has the source of the Neckar river in a small park, marked with a stone.
That clockmaking is the reason for the ride. The Black Forest developed clocks in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when farmers in long winters carved wooden wheels and built clocks to sell, and the craft grew into a major industry. Schwenningen became a centre for factory-made clocks and watches, with firms such as Kienzle and Mauthe, and the Black Forest cuckoo clock is a more rural cousin. The German Clock Route links museums, workshops and villages in the region, and you can follow the story across the hills.
The town has about eighty thousand people, so everything is available, including large fuel stations and supermarkets, and it is an easy place to begin. The Baar plateau around it is high, open and gentle, with farmland, wind and big skies, and the climate is cold by German standards, so mornings can be frosty even in spring. Riding west toward Furtwangen, the road climbs into the forest, with spruce on the hills and wooden farmhouses with huge roofs coming down almost to the ground, a style that has been used for centuries to shed snow.
The bends in the Black Forest are among the best in Germany, smooth, rhythmic and well surfaced, and weekend traffic of other motorcycles can be heavy. Speed limits are enforced in places, and some roads have noise restrictions for bikes on certain days, so check signs before you go. Autumn is clear and crisp, winter can be snowy, and the pace of life in the villages is slow. Try a slice of Black Forest cake in a village café, and you will understand why the region is famous for more than clocks.