We were really keen to visit
Freiburg, the “jewel of the Black Forest' so we went to check it
out today. We had originally tried to book accommodation there but
didn't find anything suitable at the time.
Frieburg is way south west
from where we are in Bad Liebenzell. It looks like a huge distance on
a map but it is really only about 200 km away – a doable day trip.
Still, tt was going to take us two hours to get there so we got up
early so we could have enough time to check out the city. We hate
getting up early.
We took the fastest route to
Frieburg, which counter intuitively took us north out of the black
forest, then west and then south along the main highway which runs
in between the black forest and France. This main highway was an
autobahn and mostly very quick however there were some lengthy
roadworks which means you have to slow down to 80km/h for these long
stretches.
One of the great things
about staying in the Black Forest is that you are eligible to get a
'Konus Card'. This is a thing offered by the Black Forest Tourist
Board, and offers free transport on trains, buses and trams within
the Black Forest area. You just can't take any of the more direct
inter city express trains.This means we could have caught a train to
Frieburg (or anywhere else for that matter) but the trip needs
several connections and takes much longer than driving. What we did
do though was to park just on the outskirts of Freiburg and catch a
tram into the city centre. This, with our card, was free – though
we didn't get checked.
Freiburg was another
typically pretty city with a nice 'alt stadt' old city centre. The
weather was better today, though still occasional light rain, and the
city centre was reasonably busy.
The busiest area was around
the imposing Freiburg Munster where a market was being held. On one
side was a handy craft oriented market and on the other side was
fresh produce. This was a good market and extremely busy.
An interesting aspect of
Freiburg is its open drainage system which runs through many of the
streets.
It seems that a popular
thing for young children to do is to bring small toy boats and float
them in these water channels.
Some sections of the water
channels are covered over with grates so people can get into the
shops easier. We watched as one boy sent his boat through a longer
'tunnel' area repeatedly.
While Freiburg is a
university town, apart from the little children and their boats, most
people were of advanced years and most of those people were in
'advanced years' tour groups. Must be a thing for the older folk to
go to Freiburg. :)
We had a walk around the old
city centre and the surroundings, popping into some of the shops, and
then walking through the old city centre a second and third time.
Freiburg is probably a big place in comparison to other places in the
Black Forest – but it ain't that big! We got ourselves a snack at a
bakery cafe (two coffees, chocolate croissant and strawberry danish –
9.15 Euros), walked some more through the city and the University bit
and then got the tram back to the car. All of this by about 1pm.
Even though if you looked up
you could see the forest around the town in the distance, we didn't
quite get the feeling of 'immersion' in the Black Forest while in
Freiburg. It felt more like any other old European city to us, though
still cool (don't get me wrong) it wasn't what we had in our minds of
what this 'jewel of the Black Forest' was going to be.
With our time in Freiburg
finished sooner than expected we had time for some more exploring. We
set a course through the centre of the Black Forest to go to another
town called Triberg. This drive was much different from the highway
we had come in on – much smaller roads, slower speed, immersion in
the forest and lots of driving through tiny towns.
Most of the towns we had
driven through were very quiet, but once we got to Triberg it was
very busy. To the best of my knowledge Triberg is know for two things
– cuckoo clock shopping and the Triberg waterfall – Germany's
highest waterfall.
Triberg itself (the main
bit) is essentially one main street, long, and very steep. Up the top
is the waterfall and down the bottom – well its the bottom of the
street and the valley. Most of the shops along the main street are
tourist shops, handicrafts, cuckoo clocks or cafes.
The most popular of the
shops is the House of 1000 clocks. This is full of cuckoo clocks and
heaps of other stuff. This shop was super busy! We already have an
authentic cuckoo clock from the Black Forest but we still were
thinking about buying another one. We held ourselves back and didn't
get one – but it was hard not to. We could just imagine it sitting
on our wall in Berlin, ticking away annoyingly and the weights
needing to be pulled everyday! Nah, seriously, they are lovely things
to have in your home, once you get used to the tick -tocking.
We went up to the waterfall
and the cheeky bastards want to charge you 3.20 Euros (with the
discount) just to look at it. Stuff that. Stupid false economy really
though, 3.20 Euros? Considering how much it cost to hire the car, the
petrol and the accommodation. Anyway, they can jam their 3.20 Euros
(EACH!). We could see the trickle from the waterfall anyway...for
free.
As small as Triberg is, we
found this to be much more to represent a Black Forest town compared
to Freiburg – the connection to nature, valleys, trees, water,
cuckoo clocks and being nowhere near anywhere else if you were to
break down.
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