One flew over the cuckoo's nest: vegan tourist in the Black Forest

(Forêt-Noire - Foresta Nera - Selva Negra - Шварцвальд)

Recently we toured some parts of the Black Forest (Germany) and ate some food (vegan) on the way. A lot of my friends from outside of Europe, and just people I have met outside of Europe, have told me they would like to visit Germany. Where in the Germany? "I want to see the Black Forest", they said (usually). So, just to clarify: What is the "Black Forest"? The Black Forest is not a forest, it's a mountain range. And the region around that mountain range is also often called the Black Forest. Of course, on those mountains and hills there's also quite a bit of forest, but it's the same kind of forest you can find in any rural area (and some urban areas, too) in Germany. (The German for Black Forest is Schwarzwald [schwarz: black, Wald: forest]. You'll see this term around).

Freiburg

The largest city (or town, depending on your preferential use of the English language) in the Black Forest (the region, not on top of any mountain) is Freiburg (aka Freiburg im Breisgau - not the one in Switzerland) - don't ask what "Breisgau" is ... It's another region, an administrative region, "between the Rhine River and the foothills of the Black Forest."

We toured around Freiburg (Black Forest region) and went to the Schauinsland mountain (just outside of Freiburg), Triberg (deepest Black Forest), and some towns just outside the Black Forest region: Basel (Switzerland - just a "Katzensprung" [literally translated: a cat's leap, i.e. a stone's throw] from Freiburg), Karlsruhe, and Heidelberg.

I asked in the non-so-very-active "Freiburg vegan" Facebook group, whether one can buy vegan Black Forest cherry cake anywhere in Freiburg? No answer. And I don't think anyone is selling vegan Black Forest cherry cake in this area. It's also a bit of a complex process to make a fancy one, so ... understandable.

So, in the words of Mike D: "D.I.Y. That Means Do It Yourself". The result was deliciousness itself (to borrow from Mike D's fellow American, Mr. Twain). Note that we made this cake without a proper baking dish (spring form), without any electrical gadgets (stirring gear) ... and without much Fingerspitzengefühl either ... with a fridge though!

Vegan Black Forest cherry caked (Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte; homemade)

Below is some stuff we bought at the local "discounter" supermarket ALDI. (Germans call the cheap category of supermarket chains, i.e. ALDI, LIDL, Netto, and Penny, "discounter" ... German English.)

A: some token vegetables

B: some of the Black Forest cherry cake ingredients: cornstarch, agartine (agar agar-based "gelatine"), cherries (in a jar; we actually mostly used frozen cherries which we bought later, not pictured), baking soda (Natron), Black Forest cherry spirit (kirsch, Kirschwasser)

C: vegan fish fingers (to feed to the non-European)

D: I think, I forgot the letter D

E: typical "German" food: (vegan) gnocchi (to feed to the non-European)

F: typical (southwest) German food: (vegan) Schupfnudeln (to feed to the non-European; at the Christmas markets, these are often available, eaten slightly fried with sauerkraut, but the traditional Schupfnudeln are not vegan, they contain egg and butter)

G: a typical German "baloney" (maybe) - but vegan

H: some vegan spread (pâté)

I: DIY tahini, we bought at the Christmas market, from some slightly grumpy (it was cold and raining heavily) Palestinians/Israelis (don't ask me)

J: some more spreads (pâtés ... spreads in these flat little tins are a "traditional" German vegan thing, dating back to at least the 1990s)

K: vegan supermarket burger

L: "pretzel sticks" (don't ask me, I tried to veto buying them, they were a present [!] - don't ask)

On the way to the centre of town, in Freiburg, we usually walked past two falafel stalls, the one in front of Ariana Orient House (Afghan supermarket, lots of Turkish food - we didn't try the falafel) and the one which I think is called Lelani's Falafel (a Syrian falafel stall - they also had some baklava-type sweets, and I asked if they're vegan, and the guy didn't know - maybe he was just a temporary help [?]).

Lelani's falafel (pretty good!)

In Freiburg, there are five "city-owned" museums: (1) the Augustiner museum (Augustinermuseum), (2) the archaelogical museum (Archäologisches Museum Colombischlössle, inside the Colombi "castle"; almost next to Lelani's Falafel); (3) the modern art museum (Museum für Neue Kunst); (4) the town history museum (Museum für Stadtgeschichte), and the (5) "nature & man" (Natur und Mensch, natural history) museum.

You can buy an "all 5 museums combined" ticket (valid for one day) for 8 Euros. The Augustiner museum had some interesting church stuff (gargoyles & pseudo-gargoyles, big statues, etc.) and costs 8 Euros anyway (this one museum on its own). The Augustiner museum also had an awesome anticolonialist exhibition, exhibiting among other things info regarding the little talked about genocide (you read that right) the Germans committed in Namibia - around 1900, "the 20th century's first genocide". Tens of thousands of people (maybe >100,000) were killed by German forces.

The archaelogical museum had some old "German" stuff (mostly 2000 to 1000 years old).

The modern art museum was all right. The lower floors (not the top floor) of the modern art museum may be free - not sure.

The town history museum is right next to the Münster (minster, cathedral, big church, on the right side, looking from the main entrance) - this museum is always free (and has toilets downstairs).

The "Nature & man" is really like a young children's museum, with stuffed animals, the real stuffed animal type, simple "toy" education tools, and screaming children everywhere - nothing against children, but don't say I didn't warn you. Strangely, on the top floor of the "Nature & man" museum, there was another (small) anticolonialist exhibition, questioning the display of stolen historic artefacts in museums (you were not supposed to take photos in this exhibition - but you could take photos anywhere else in these museums).

If you keep walking - from the main station, passing Lelani's Falafel - towards the centre, you'll pass the theatre. If you turn right, you'll come to this building, the main building of the university library (there are toilets on the ground floor and anyone can just walk in). The big square across the main street is the "square of the old synagoge" (Platz der Alten Synagoge), which is where the synagoge was until the Nazis burnt it down in 1938. There's a monument on the square (the flat thing with water, probably - it didn't have water in January) - check it out.

This is the minster (cathedral):

The things below are from the archaelogical museum: a Celtic chief's attire. I took a picture of this because the "outfit" doesn't just include leather (sandals, belt) and wool (cape, etc.), but it also lists the dyes used. For the crimson red colour, they used squashed up lice, not cochineal lice - which are from Mexico - but the medieval Euro version of cochineal: Kermes lice (Kermes vermilio). Apparently Kermes lice were once (when exactly I don't know) commonly used in Europe to make "fake vermilion" (which is of mineral origin, i.e. vegan) or "fake carmine" (i.e. cochineal red, squashed cochineal lice, not vegan). The yellowish mustardy (mustardy is a word) colour was made from plants though, from oak bark. Oak trees are one of the typical native trees you'll find in Germany. Throw an acorn anywhere and it will grow into a massive oak tree if you let it.

The Roman townsmen, in contrast to the Celts, used another type of small animal to make reddish dye: sea snails. Below you can see a Roman citizen's attire. It says, 12,000 purple sea snails were used to make around 1.5 grams of dye. This dye was used for the red stripes of the tunic below. The name of this reddish dye in English apparently is Tyrian purple.

Wikipedia says: "In nature, the snails use the secretion as part of their predatory behavior to sedate prey and as an antimicrobial lining on egg masses. The snail also secretes this substance when it is attacked by predators, or physically antagonized by humans (e.g., poked). Therefore, the dye can be collected either by "milking" the snails, which is more labor-intensive [...], or by collecting and destructively crushing the snails. David Jacoby remarks that "twelve thousand snails of Murex brandaris yield no more than 1.4 g of pure dye, enough to colour only the trim of a single garment." (Jacoby 2004)"

That means that quite a few more snails were killed for this Roman townslady's red "workaday dress". I'm not sure from when exactly these clothes are - they are "replicas", of course. I doubt any real clothes from these times (~2000 years ago) could have survived.

What's below is from the "Nature & man" museum:

There was no description for this, but it's a carob pod and weights. Carob seeds, being indestructibly hard and incredibly uniformly shaped, were used as weight "standards" (and units?) for weighing valuable spices ... and for weighing gold too. Interestingly, there was a reference to this (carob seeds as weight standards) in the Heidelberg castle museum too (see below) as well as in the Jewish town history museum Judengasse in Frankfurt (that we also went to - not pictured here).

Also from the "Nature & man" museum: Who killed these animals? And what do we teach our children? Beavers are quite common (and "vegan") in German forest now, I think. You are unlikely to see them on a forest walk. You might see a beaver-knawed trees, however. Wolves do exist too in Germany. But definitely you won't get to see any free-living wolves. Badgers also exist in the forests, but I've never seen one (not even a dead one - but a friend of mine has - it's pretty rare). We did see a fox though, from behind, running past us while we were sitting on a bench at the Schlossberg (in Freiburg).

A carved elephant's tusk, stolen from an elephant hunter (or their customer) in Benin (~1900). The elephant seems to have been killed in the 1800s. The elephant killer and the ivory carver is/are unknown. The owner appears to have been "the ruler" of Benin at the time. The museum in Freiburg (this same museum, I think) obtained this tusk from a merchant in Hamburg (named Carl Hoppe) in 1903, apparently.

The Schlossberg (literally "castle [Schloss] mountain [Berg]" - there's no castle anymore though) is a small mountain (hill) in Freiburg, almost directly next to the minster. You can walk up or take a small cable car up (a cable car on rails on the ground, not the hanging type of cable car - "cable railway" might be the correct term). There's a traditional German restaurant at the top of the hill (or rather halfway up) that is called "Dattler" (a family name, see photo), and they do have some vegan food, a bit "dear" (pricey) though. Like quite a few restaurants in Freiburg, they get vegan meat replacements delivered by a small Freiburg-based vegan company called Sin Carne Schwarzwald. Look for "Sin Carne" on the menus of Freiburg restaurants if you're curious to try their products (we haven't - the restaurant Dattler was booked out anyway). This is just outside their restaurant, and there's a platform from which you'll have a nice view over the city.

The cable railway goes up the Schlossberg right from the "town's garden" (a little park, Stadtgarten). And 50 metres north of this little park, there's the "old cemetery", not to be confused with the "main cemetery", which is also quite nice, and larger too).

Old cemetery

View of the minster (cathedral) coming from the "town's garden" (Stadtgarten)

View from the same bridge

Just outside the minster, practically every day (morning and afternoon, I think), there's a completely vegan German sausage stall. The sausages and burgers are not extremely meaty (they're tofu-based), and you won't mistake them for real meat. They use "Taifun" products - a Freiburg-based vegan (and organic) tofu company and one of the largest tofu makers in Germany. This type of sausage stall, or food truck rather, which Germans might call Wurstbude, is an "archetypal" German thing - and there are non-vegan ones around too, of course. The vegan stall can easily be spotted. It's green and is called "Tofu-Stand" (Stand is stall in German):

Tofu Anonymous

Remember the tahini I mentioned before? A vegetarian (I think) company called "AuberGenie" (play on words, with aubergine [eggplant] and genius; check their IG) at the Christmas market, just outside the archaelogical museum (Colombi "castle"):

From the "AuberGenie" food truck - pretty good food!

Just outside the main railway station, there's an East Asian supermarket called "Asia Markt Fortune". They have tempeh and tofu and the usual "East Asian" stuff. Bengali? Japanese? Mama Sita's?

There's another large "Asian Shop" near the minster (Habsburgerstraße 127).

And just around the corner, from the "Asia Markt Fortune" and the main station" ther's a Burger King, with vegan options - don't ask me for details though. I'm not a Burger King expert, but (as of January 2023) Burger King in Germany uses "The Vegetarian Butcher" (now owned by Unilever) products and marks their vegan products as vegan.

In the Lindt (the Swiss chocolate company) store in the centre of Freiburg

Another shopping haul (from ALDI supermarket)

Freiburg's own well-kept "dirty secret" (ask anyone if Freiburg - they won't know, maybe not as secret as the genocide in Namibia though - see above) can be found almost right outside the main station ... "hidden" inside a children's playground (Spielplatz Kreuzstraße), at the corner of Kreuzstraße and Colmarer Straße, close to Ariana Orient House.

On 10 May 1940, i.e. during World War 2, the Germans bombed Freiburg (yes, you read that right), by mistake, thinking they were flying over some French town or village (bad weather). 57 people died. The Germans blamed it it "those evil Brits".

According to Wikipedia, on the same day, "on 10 December 1940 Adolf Hitler accused the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to have started with "terrorist" attacks against the civilian population with the bombing of Freiburg" (apparently, this is the original source, if you're up for reading German in Gothic print!).

In Freiburg, you'll see the word "vegan" in cafes and restaurants (windows, signs) all over the place. This is what we ate in one of them - I forgot the name. The soup was a tiny bit cold though.

Note: We didn't investigate the whole of Freiburg for vegan food and offerings. There's a lot. There is one 100% vegan restaurant in town. It's called "Blattwerk" - and we have not been (have a look on HappyCow).

The picture below is from inside the main station. "Dean & David" is a non-veg chain that has quite a few vegan options. Here you can see that the vegan "chicken" is 1 Euro cheaper than the real chicken meat. Awesome!

Just outside the train station - to the west, not towards the city centre - there's also a vegetarian and very vegan-friendly café, called "Café Huber" - again: we haven't been. But that's just one example. Check Happy Cow, Google, (maybe the "Freiburg vegan" Facbook groups) and have a look around yourself.

Want to the see the cake again? Here ya go (say with a Cockney accent).

Schauinsland

"Schauinsland" is a small mountain (not a Mount Everest mountain) not very far from Freiburg. It takes about 30 minutes by tram and bus to get there, and it's quite easy to get there. From the main station in Freiburg go up the bridge, up the stairs from next to platform 1. This is the bridge with the tram/streetcar [Straßenbahn] on it. Buy a ticket: a day pass for local transport in Freiburg and surroundings, which is valid on that day and until 3 am at night (i.e. 3 am the following day). You can buy the ticket from the ticket machine inside the station (which also sells railway tickets) or the ticket machine on the bridge (which only sells local transport tickets) - if you can't manage, ask DB staff inside the station. The ticket machines inside the station have several language options. The day pass is called "TagesKarte" (solo = for one person [6 Euros]; duo = for two people [9 Euros]; Gruppe = for [up to] 5 people [12 Euros; prices as of January 2023]). On the bridge, take the "STR 2" (tram 2) towards "Günterstal Dorfstraße, Freiburg im Breisgau" - this is the last stop in that direction (which is alternatively called "Günterstal" and/or "Dorfstraße - God only knows why).

Just next to that last stop of the tram - on the same side of the street - there's a bus stop: Take "Bus 21" which is going directly to the foot of the Schauinsland mountain where there's a cable car (the hanging type) that will take you up and down the mountain. The stations (if you check on bahn.de - the railway website in Germany) are called "Hauptbahnhof, Freiburg im Breisgau" (Freiburg main station) and "Schauinslandbahn Talstation, Horben" (valley station for the cable car up the Schauinsland mountain). The tickets for the Schauinsland cable car (Schauinslandbahn; the price for this is not included in your day pass for public transport) costs 14 Euros per person (adult; as of January 2023) for going up and down (and 10.50 Euros for just going one way).

This mountain is a mountain for taking a walk. You definitely don't need hiking gear. You'll see people with baby carriages too. There's a restaurant right at the top, where the cable car stops, and they have some vegan options, but don't expect too much - we only bought some ice cream (see below). The restaurant's called "Die Bergstation" - check their menu [Speisekarte] here and look for "egan" (the "V" in "vegan" is a special character).

This is a statue of an Alsatian (wolfhound) who saved his owner who was trapped in the snow (somewhere on or near the Schauinsland mountain). The dog could smell that his owner was in trouble, from miles away. The dog broke free (apparently he was tied to something), ran through the snow, and saved his owners life. That's the story.

Vegan berry ice cream (yes, this is vegan, despite the cartoon cow)

Triberg

If you watch YouTube videos of tourists in the Black Forest, you'll probably come across the town Triberg. To be blunt, I really do not recommend it. It's a waste of time. In Triberg, they have "Germany's tallest waterfall" (allegedly - apparently, there aren't any tall waterfalls in Germany) and the "world's largest cuckoo clock" (imagine a big plain wooden shed with some plain wooden decorations, see below).

If you arrive by train from Freiburg, go over to the other side of the railway tracks. If you arrive from the Lake of Constance (Bodensee), which isn't too far away, you're already on the right side.

All "sights", the things you can see in the YouTube videos, are in the centre of town - except for the biggest cuckoo clock, which is in the opposite direction, actually about 3 or 4 kilometres outside of town. It's quite a bit of a walk.

Railway station in Triberg

... and just outside the railway station

The "world's biggest cuckoo clock" in Triberg. You can also (if you buy a ticket) visit the inside of the cuckoo clock (see picture on the sign). Enter through the gift shop - the whole house is a gift shop - where you can buy the ticket. The sign (picture) says "last admission 17:40 pm" (i.e. 5:40 pm), but if you look at the bottom left, it says that during winter time (November to Easter), on the weekend, last admission is at 17:00 (= 5 pm). As we arrived at around five past 5 pm, the cuckoo clock was already closed. And this is Germany - no favours (and this is deepest redneck country too).

We did see the town though, which is in fact quite pretty but not mind blowingly pretty either. The town is also a bit drawn-out, and walking from the railway station to the entrance of the waterfalls (yes, you have to pay) - where all the shops are (a handful of shops) - takes about 30 to 40 minutes (it's about 2.5 kilometres).

You can find vegan food in Triberg - unless you expect something fancy.

Just before the YouTube-famous cuckoo clock shops (just before the waterfall entrance), we saw this Turkish fast food place (which was closed though when we were there) that had vegan "no cheese" pizza listed on the menu (see number 34). Don't expect great pizza (or great falafel, which might or might not be 100% vegan) - this is a typical 21st century German Turkish kebab fast food place. If you're Italian or with Italian friends, hurry along to the waterfalls.

Just a few metres up the road, just before the cuckoo clock shops

On your right, you'll also see the German supermarket chain Edeka, where you'll find the usual vegan edibles like vegan milks, vegan ice cream, vegan spreads, vegan meat alternatives, vegan cheese, vegan yoghurt, bread, fruit, etc.

Black Forest Easter Island moai (in front of Edeka supermarket)

Vegan food at Edeka supermarket in Triberg ...

vegan cheese and meat alternatives ...

vegan yoghurts ...

Across the street from Edeka is where the cuckoo clock shops are. These gift shops sell 1000 Euro- cuckoo clocks and really mostly the exact same stuff as the gift shop next to the minster in Freiburg (fridge magnets, postcards, etc.).

Opposite the entrance to the waterfalls, there's this building (a restaurant) ...

... and there's something vegan on the menu (a bit expensive - and I wouldn't expect anything exceptional)

Here's the entrance to the waterfalls:

And from here you can also see the museum - the Black Forest museum (red box in the photo) - which is quite a cool place to visit IF you go to Triberg.

The entrance fee to the waterfalls: 6 Euros per person (adult)

Looking back towards the entrance

And this is the waterfall. You'll have this kind of view again and again walking up the mountain, which is a nice walk. As the water falls all along the way down the entire mountain, this is Germany's "tallest waterfalls" - they use the plural - Wasserfälle rather than Wasserfall. A bit cheeky.

I liked the museum (Black Forest museum, Schwarzwaldmuseum). It's not worth the trip to Triberg, but once you are in Triberg, it's a nice place to visit, and the "waterfalls ticket" includes the museum. And I don't think you can buy tickets for either the waterfalls only or the museum only. The museum staff was really friendly. The museum is quite quirky - which I liked.

The world's smallest cuckoo clocks - certainly more interesting than the world's largest cuckoo clock

Note the "oriental style" cuckoo clock. And note that the Roman number 4 on the clocks is always "IIII", which doesn't really exist in "Roman", rather than the actual Roman number 4, i.e. "IV". This is meant to make it more easy to read, so that you won't mistake the "IV" for a "VI".

Hidden inside the museum (sort of hidden) is a cafe, the Museums Café Triberg (which was closed on that day). And to our surprise we found several vegan options on the menu (which was there to see despite them being closed). Who would have expected a vegan (no honey) açaí (AH-SAH-EE) bowl in the middle of rural southern Germany?

Vegan Bircher muesli?

Vegan "Maultaschen": large dough pockets filled with fake meat, sort of the southwest German version of large ravioli - forgive me, Italians ... and vegan cake! ... The story behind Maultaschen is that monks invented them in order to hide the meat, which they weren't supposed to eat, from God!)

The sign says "vegan Maultaschen with potato salad". Awesome! Actually sounds great.

Inside the Black Forest museum

Gandhi-style spinning wheel

Old school German bed - not vegan (with feathers inside the blanket and pillow, I'm sure)

More clocks

A musical box roll - I would call it.

A dog in a painting

Weird hammers

Weird stones ... probably from the tunnels built by Italian tunnel builders a long time ago

Weird hat

Weird 1970s sled from Karlsruhe (see below)

Old radios

Behold, the "world's biggest cuckoo clock"

Same

Bottom section of the clock with a water wheel

This is the building with the gift shop. In the front you'll see this. Around the back you can find the "biggest cuckoo clock". You can insert a 1 Euro coin into the box (see the red box, on the right), and the cuckoo will come out right away. So I missed filming the beginning (the cuckoo just comes out once) and the wooden figurines move about doing their thing.

Basel [aka Basle] (Switzerland)

As Basel is really close to Freiburg - and because the German "Baden-Würrtemberg-Ticket" train ticket is valid until Basel train station (until "Basel SBB" station, I think, not just until "Basel Bad" station) - we had a look at the Christmas market in Basel.

And we found this vegetarian food stall with plenty of vegan options - and they accepted Euros (rather than Swiss franks). Switzerland is more expensive than Germany: The vegan burgers cost around 10 Euros each.

"Vegetario" vegetarian (vegan-friendly) food truck at the Christmas market in Basel

Vegan burgers

Poster for a "no culture without animals" exhibition

Mushroom seller's truck's mushroom cartoon decoration

Somewhere between "Basel SBB" station and "Basel Bad" station

Karlsruhe

We were in Karlsruhe just briefly ...

Karlsruhe castle in the wintery sun

Karlsruhe vegan cake ...

... from "Café Kongress", a traditional non-veg café that usually has some vegan cake. Often they even have several kinds of vegan cake, and the vegan cakes are marked as "vegan". Better come earlier rather than later in the day because most of the vegan cake might already have run out later in the day ... address: Ettlinger Str. 11 A, 76137 Karlsruhe

Don't ask me what this cake/tart is called.

These cakes were from "My heart beats vegan" (a 100% vegan restaurant).

"Subway" with vegan options inside Karlsruhe central railway station (next to the toilets - which cost 1 Euro). Practically all the other cafes/food places in the statio have vegan food too.

Our vegan correspondent in Karlsruhe sends more pictures:

From "drei & zwanzig" vegan cafe

Update: From an "Asia Shop" in Karlsruhe:

Vegan pork chops & vegan pork cutlets

Vegan pork slices & vegan chicken balls

Vegan grilled steak & vegan beef slices

Vegan chicken slices & vegan minced fish

Vegan wheat pork ribs & vegan fish sauce (Würzsauce Typ Fischsauce)

Vegan spicy roasted anchovy & vegan tomato miso soup

Vegan sesame soy soup & vegan frozen vegetable streaky pork

Vegan veg salted chicken & vegan fried bean curd sheet

Vegan veg chicken nugget & vegan codfish flavour "codfish filet"

Vegan gyoza

Karlsruhe update 4 July 2024: vegan cakes at Café Bertis (Ludwig-Wilhelm-Straße 14)

Heidelberg

As we were a bit "lazy", we took a train from the main station (Hauptbahnhof) in Heidelberg to the "Altstadt" station - which is the closest station to the castle. Right next the station is a big arch, the Karlstor ...

Karlstor (Karl's gate)

... and right next to the arch we saw this "Veganuary" ad by ALDI (supermarket). This type of advertising pillar, by the way, is an archetypal of Germany. It was invented by Ernst Theodor Amandus Litfaß from Berlin, who first put one of these up in Berlin too, in 1855.

Across the street from the entrance to the cable railway that goes up to the castle, there was a Persian restaurant (non-veg; the name of the restaurant is "Persepolis"). They had four meal options - three of them vegan. Really friendly people too. And tasty food.

The entry fee for the castle in Heidelberg is 9 Euros per person (adult; as of January 2023). You can walk up too, but you can also take the cable railway (not the hangig type of cable car) up and down the hill - and the price for the cable railway is included in the entry ticket for the castle. The castle is not all the way up the hill. There is another cable railway and THAT costs extra.

[Space for photos of the cable railway - intentionally left blank]

This is the (apparently) famous "blown up tower". God knows who blew it up, but it was a while ago. The German writer Goethe already made drawings of this blown up, collapsed tower in ~1800 (very roughly).

Inside the castle compounds, there is a very large wine barrel (it's maybe 6 metres tall, more or less). More interestingly, Heidelberg Castle houses the "German Apothecary Museum".

Inside the "apothecary" museum:

A dog who, legend has it, saved Saint Rochus of Switzerland (in the early 1600s) by bringing him bread every day when he (Saint Rochus) had come down with the plague (in Italy, while out helping out other plague-stricken people, and he got infected). Did his vegan bread diet cure Saint Rochus? No. An angel did. And the bread in Italy might not have been vegan anyway (maybe they used lard).

Back when apothecaries had a collection of spices ...

And then I "discovered" this ... "animal-source fragrances":

Apparently, fragrances made from animals or animal parts were widely used in pharmacies until the 1800s, used as "medicines". For example, people hoped these fragrances would help to ward off the plague. This info box (below) includes info on "civet musk" (made from civet cats), castoreum (made from beavers), ambergris (ambergrease, from sperm whales), and musk (from musk deer).

Civet musk

Castoreum

Musk

Musk again

Ambergris (from whales)

Lovely whales

Lovely musk deer

"Animal chalk"

Apparently, all kinds of animals were used for their calcium-rich "components", including corals, sea shells, squids, crabs, and ostrich eggs ...

Apparently, from the 1500s until the 1700s, the use of "mumia" (human mummy powder in this case), human grease (!), human blood, and human skull caps were commonly used by the "apothecaries" of the time. Also ... human bladder stone ... Human grease, it says here, was supposed to come from humans who died a violent death!

Human skull cap

Corals

Sea shells, squid parts, ostrich egg, and crab powder

Narwhal tusk was extremely valuable. One tusk was worth as much as 12 townhouses, it says here. This "unicorn horn" (as it was "marketed") was used either as a store gimmick (decoration) or it was added to medicines, in powdered form. Another type of "unicorn horn" that was also used was mammoth tusk - not sure how they could obtain mammoth tusks - mammoth in this part of Europe seem to have become extinct around 21,000 years ago.

The apothecaries of the time also used pike (fish) jawbones, bass (fish) bones, boar teeth, fox lung (with fennel and anise [aniseed]), toads (again), hare bones, and dried wood louse (sow bugs).

They also used "stag's tears" ("lacrimae cervi"), bones from the heart of a stag - apparently, ruminants have bones in their hearts ... and whole dried vipers (snakes) were also used as "medicine". Apart from whole vipers, they also used viper grease, viper spine (shown here), viper skin ... and ... viper flesh with salt, dill, and white bread formed into "troches" (pastilles, lozenges)

Bezoar (also bezoard) ... some THING from the gastrointestinal tract of animals (ruminants, it says here), powdered, in a jar. "Bezoar stones" were thought to have the power to neutralize any type of poison. Bezoar stones could be worn as amulets (charms) too ... or they were ground into a powder and added to "medicines".