The Black Forest is around 160 kilometres long and 50 kilometres wide. That is a forest the size of a small country. It rolls up and down hills, with rivers running through valleys and tiny villages tucked into the slopes. From above it looks like a giant green carpet.
Most of the trees are fir and spruce - tall, dark evergreens that grow straight up like green spears. Walk in and the air smells of pine sap and cool earth. The sound is soft - leaves under your feet, water running somewhere, woodpeckers tapping high up in the branches.
The Black Forest is famous for its traditional crafts. The wooden cuckoo clock, where a little wooden bird pops out of a door every hour and goes 'cuckoo!', was invented here in the 1700s. Some Black Forest villages still have workshops where families carve cuckoo clocks the same way their grandparents did.
Black Forest gateau is a German cake made from chocolate, cherries and cream. It is named after the forest - the dark sponge layer is meant to look a bit like the forest floor, and the cream and cherries like the snow and the wild fruit. If you have ever had a slice, you have tasted a piece of Germany.