We have been so lucky to get to travel this past summer! Another short trip that I haven’t documented yet was to Freiburg im Breisgau on the edge of the Black Forest. It’s only a couple hours from Munich on the train, so we headed there one Friday evening back in July.
Along the way we passed through Ulm and got a glimpse in the distance of Ulm Minster, currently the tallest church in the world. (It’ll be overtaken by the Sagrada Família in Barcelona someday if they ever finish it.)
It was a very pretty train trip, and the sun was setting as we arrived in Freiburg…
We checked in to our hotel and eventually met up with our friend Scott, who drove down from Düsseldorf.
On Saturday, we ventured out for breakfast. Freiburg is a very beautiful city, and it has a really interesting system of gutters called “Bächle“. (The word comes from “Bach,” which means “brook.”) These are fed by a nearby river and run all along the edges of the streets in the pedestrian area of the old town. There’s a legend that if you accidentally fall in one of the Bächle, you’ll end up marrying a Freiburger!
The cafe where we had breakfast was actually called Bächle and it was, of course, right alongside one of them.
Our first destination was the Münsterplatz (Cathedral Square) around Freiburg Münster. As it was early Saturday, there was a market happening all around it. We checked out the architecture of the cathedral and watched the locals go about their shopping. (The Snook would like to draw your attention to the gargoyle in the upper-left of the 4th photo, where the rainwater comes out of a statue’s bum!)
We continued to wander the old town…
Even the manhole covers were pretty!
There are also canals that come off the river and feed into the Bächle. In one of them is a famous stone statue of a crocodile.
Freiburg is in a famous wine-growing region, and near the city museum was a public garden that had lots of different grape varieties and flowers.
At lunchtime we piled into Scott’s car and headed towards Schauinsland, a nearby mountain in the Black Forest. The name literally means “look-into-the-country,” and to get to the top of it we took the Schauinslandbahn, Germany’s longest cable car (3.6 kilometres / 2.2 mi).
The journey takes about 15 minutes, and the view kept getting more amazing the higher we went.
For the last part of the trip, I set my iPhone up on the window and made a time-lapse video. (You can also see it in better quality on Instagram.)
The trip was well worth the view!
We had lunch at the restaurant on top of the mountain and then headed out for a hike. It turns out that silver, lead, and zinc were mined from the mountain for hundreds of years, and there were miles of mining tunnels beneath us. This tunnel was near the mining museum, and I believe if you go on a tour you may also get to go inside.
The boys quickly realised that the hike I was taking them on as a little more strenuous than they anticipated! We clambered up and down rocky paths around the top of the mountain for the better part of an hour.
One landmark on the mountain is the Engländerdenkmal (Englishmen’s Memorial). Basically, in 1936 a bunch of British schoolboys and their group leader went on an ill-advised hike over the mountain when a blizzard hit. Despite the efforts of the townspeople to save them, several of the boys died from exposure. A few years later a memorial was set up. It’s a fascinating and tragic story…
It was a pretty spot. I took a photo of the view from the wall.
We continued our hike. The Snook was, as ever, concerned that he would get a tick bite. (Ticks love him.) (He didn’t.)
We kept hearing bells all around us on the mountain, a constant soundtrack. What’s with the bells? Then we figured it out. 🐄
We also found a sculpture path on the mountain (“Pfad der Sinne” – “Path of the Senses”) that had some really cool carved wood sculptures. You can see some of them online. This one was called “Der Geist des Waldes” (“The spirit of the forest”).
We eventually returned to the Schauinslandbahn and rode it back down to the bottom, then headed back to Freiburg. We had a dinner reservation at local restaurant called Gasthaus Zur Linde that was recommended in the Michelin Guide. It was very nice, and we sampled quite a few local wines as well.
Breakfast on Sunday was at Sam’s Cafe in Freiburg, and I went with the traditional “Freiburger Frühstück.”
After our hike the day before, we felt like we deserved some pampering. So we got back into Scott’s car and headed for the nearby Keidel Thermal Baths. This large spa area had many heated indoor and outdoor thermal pools, and we spent a few hours swimming and floating and chatting in the sun. (No photos as I locked my phone up in the changing room!) As we were leaving, we noticed a sign pointing downstairs to an area where you can actually see the mineral hot spring that supplies the water.
We went for a final wander through Freiburg to check out the Bächle once more. It was a warm day, so there were often kids splashing or walking in it. I also saw several with little boats on a string that you could pull alongside you as you walked. (I’m still kicking myself I didn’t get one at the market as a souvenir!)
More Bächle…
We had just enough time for a late lunch and round of beers at the Hausbrauerei Feierling Biergarten before we had to head to our train and Scott had to start back to Düsseldorf.
Lovely little excursion to yet another beautiful German town! ❤️