Scwarzwaldhochstrasse – Freudenstadt to Baden-Baden

One of the things you HAVE to do when coming to the Black Forest is to drive through the Schwarzwaldhochstrasse. This is the 'Black Forest High Road, a semi-historical roadway, one of the most scenic drives in all of Europe...they reckon.

The road runs for about 60 kilometres, at high'ish altitude from Baden-Baden to Freudenstadt. For some reason its always written as 'from Baden-Baden'. We are so bad-ass that we went from Freudenstadt instead....cartographic rebels.

Being Sunday we knew must stuff in the towns would be shut, so we had left the drive for today. We would take out time, stop at all the breathtaking look out points. I would get out my camera (even bother to use the tripod) and perfect landscape photography.

When we woke this morning the weather was fine in Bad Lienebzell, a little overcast but everything was looking okay. The drive to Freudenstadt was about an hour, nice greenery but a little wet.

When we got the Freudenstadt is was raining quite hard and it was really cold. There was hardly anyone about and everything was shut. Freudenstadt is know for its super large market place (a really large central square so we walked through this. It was really cold and wet...uncomfortable. And nothing to do. We wanted to get a pastry and coffee...nothing open.

Aufweidersehen Freudenstadt.

No problems, we still had the amazing scenic drive ahead of us and this started immediately as we left Freudenstadt. As soon as we pulled out of the main street a sign saying 'schwarzwaldhochstrasse' led us to the unmissable life experience...that we were about to experience.

We drive up, and up and up. I am not sure if you could could this a mountain but we were getting pretty high up and there are some (or one) ski resorts up here. The car's dashboard gave me a warning beep and showed a snowflake – 1.5 degrees it said, watch out for slippy road (that's what I think it means).

As we drove up we literally drove into a cloud. A bit humorous at first, until we realised we couldn't see anything at all. Again, literally, NOTHING.

Visibility would have been about 20 metres in a 360 degree radius. Could only just see the car driving lights ahead if I keep close enough, but couldn't stay too close as it would be too dangerous. Couldn't see anything behind. And sure as crap couldn't see anything of the most amazing scenic views in Germany. Oh man what a rip.

We kept on, hoping the cloud would bugger off but it never did. We were behind a car load of older, wiser and more cautious drivers. I was happy to have two red dots to follow in the fog. We passed the many vantage points and at most there were lots of cars parked there, probably hoping for the weather to improve.

We keep on behind our cautious drivers keeping a safe distance until they abruptly pulled off onto a shallow siding along with two other cars. Perhaps they were travelling in convoy and were deciding to take a safety break. This left us on our own leading the pack. By now I was used to the conditions and lead at a cautious pace.

Eventually we descended underneath the cloud and into much clearer visibility. This was a relief but also a sign that we had just driven through this scenic drive and completely missed everything it had to offer due to the stupid cloud.

The descent under the cloud led us very quickly to Baden-Baden. It was raining quite heavily as we parked the car in the town centre, driving through what felt like a pedestrian only area.

Baden-Baden is the most famous spa town in the Black Forest (maybe even the whole of Germany?). It had such a beautifully central area and surrounds. The whole place has a feeling of 'high class' to it, which is commensurate with its top spa facilities. It feels like this would be a place you would go for special occasions (wedding, honeymoon) or if you were filthy rich. It reminded us of Monaco.

It would also be a place you would go to hang out in if it wasn't Sunday and it wasn't pissing down with rain. As it was both of those things, nothing was open and there weren't a heap of people around.

We still wanted that coffee and pastry, but with the dog we couldn't go inside any of the few shops that were open and the outside seating areas were not a possibility in this weather. So we got a thick-shake from McDonalds and went home. :)

The drive back to Bad Liebenzell completed our Black Forest triangle for the day. This drive was at lower altitudes so while still wet the visibility was fine. We drove though some really nice looking places on our way back and had lots of great scenery to look at.

And with that we ended up back in Bad Liebenzell and finished our time in the Black Forest. 

Unfortunately the weather has been so crappy. It is a little disappointing that our 'spring' holiday has been a wet one. At least we were never planning on doing the outdoor sports like hiking, biking and camping which wouldn’t have been good in this weather.