Because we love Freiburg and all the people in it, we decided to repeat our little trip from last year, effectively making it an annual tradition. This time we moved it to December, so that apart from all the food and people and places we like, we could also enjoy the xmas markets and snow. Unfortunately, the snow was not quite there (that only came a couple weeks later after new year’s, dammit!), but everything else was in place. We stayed with our great friend, which was amazing, and we also rented a little car this time, so we were super flexible. We did it all – Schauinsland over the clouds, Feldberg, Titisee, flammkuchen in Goldener Sternen, Feierling with friends (they have a new annexe and it’s pretty!), gluhwine, Turkish and Thai. For markets, we explored not only the usual Freiburg ones, but went also to Ravennaschlucht outside of town, where the market is nicely located in a gorge under a tall train viaduct, and we also swung by the Basel markets on our way back to the airport. So the only bother on the whole trip were, traditionally, the UK trains which were on strike, causing us to get up at 4am on the way there to be able to make it to Gatwick, and further stress on the way back. I am done with complaining about UK trains on this blog, but if they don’t nationalise this omnishambles soon, my head might explode. But we did not let that spoil anything, and we enjoyed ourselves a lot.
Black Forest Trips
06
Apr 14
Sunny weekend in Schwarzwald
Iestyn was in Freiburg for the weekend but as usual didn’t write anything about it for SoBN, so I made a beautiful little video succinctly summarising the weekend in two minutes only. Epic. Iestyn loved the video so much that it made him go back to the video he started making about Schwarzwald about a year ago but never finished.
The sun is gonna shine from nostalgina on Vimeo.
30
Jun 13
Iest in the ‘burg
So it seems our little blog here has been sort of neglected, and things get really under-reported (which means basically not reported at all, unless I do it myself). But I don’t complain and do it because I care.
In June, Iestyn was between two jobs, so he came over to the ‘burg for full ten days. Unfortunately, I still had to go to work most of the time but we managed to have some good times nevertheless.
Such as:
A nice little walk to Hinterwaldkopf,where we’d of course been before, but down the same way this time. It was sunny and breezy, and we had a nice snack up in the top Hof. Iestyn’s face looks a bit pasty in the picture, but that’s just because all the sunscreen – otherwise, he totally tanned during the trip.
We also took Claude to Colmar, a little town across the border to France. Colmar is super-pretty, we like to call it Strasbourg nr.2. It’s smaller and more picturesque than Strasbourg but also would probably be more boring in medium term. For an afternoon stroll though, it’s super awesome. We also went to Kaysersberg (small village up the road) and saw all the storks there, and we also went for a ride to the Vosges, which are pretty but not as pretty as the Black Forest, that’s for sure.
10
Mar 12
Staufen
When we went to Belchen last week, we drove through this picturesque tiny town, nested under the Black forest hills, and guarded by a ruin of a castle in the middle of wineries. We were too wet and tired to stop there last week but decided to pay a visit to Staufen to explore its little streets, and to see what the geothermal drilling fuss is all about. (Nothing, really.) The sun was shining, and the spring is clearly here to stay. We found a nice little trail that starts going up to the castle ruin, then circles the town going through the nearby hills and a couple of viewpoints, and then gently rolls back into town on the other side. Perfect stroll for a lazy sunny day.
The castle is only ruins but you can still go up the tower to have some nice panoramic views. Which we did. We also saw a little oen bach lost running around in the vineyards and crying. Iest said it would not make it through the night, but I think it did.
From the castle we made our way into the forest, with some occasional views back through the trees. The trail to the St. Johannes chapel was all meditative, lined with signs bearing quotations from haute literature about how trees and nature will set you free and stuff (ok my German is not all that good, but I did notice the forest/tree theme connecting them all, and I even knew the one from Faust – Grau, teurer Freund, ist alle Theorie, und grün des Lebens goldner Baum), so altogether it was no wonder that the goats living by the chapel are so chilled out – they surely know the true meaning of life.
From there it was only a short walk to the Messerschmidfelsen with a lovely view, where we had a little chat with some locals, and we were on our way back down to town.
In town we checked the historical centre, which was charming, but we also found ourselves a bit hungry by then, so we thought it would be a good idea to sit somewhere in the sun and have a little grub. The flammkuchen we ordered was delicious, but when the sun went a bit down and cut our table from its warmth we had to finish quite quickly. Altogether, we found Staufen very cute and would be even nice to live there but we agreed that riding my bike for like 25 kms every morning and night to and from work might be a little bit too much.
03
Mar 12
Belchen 1414m (Spring is here!)
Beautiful sunny Saturday morning, full of glory. We decided to go for a proper nice walk to celebrate the winter retreat. The target was the hill of Belchen, the fourth highest peak of the Black Forest, lying in the lesser explored south-of-Freiburg area.
We parked Claude in a small village of Münstertal, which is at about 400 meters altitude, which according to our trusted guidebook meant a trail of some 1120 meters in altitude gain to get to the top of Belchen; and that in only some six kilometers in length, so pretty much straight up. Once we hit the slope, the signs were clear – the spring had arrived! Birds chirping, sun shining, snow melting – plus I could totally tell by the way my hair was glowing.
Soon we left Münstertal below, and immersed ourselves in the deep forest. Marching up like machines, we saw the altimeter on Iest’s watch flashing crazily, and giving up soon after – poor thing couldn’t keep up with us. (Even though it’s fair to say that this day did not find Iest in his top form, he puffed like a steam engine and sweated gallons. Good thing there were some refreshment stations along the way. Me, on the other hand, was running around like a gazellette enjoying the spring vibrations.) After a while we ventured into the snow territory, even though the snow was clearly giving out to the spring mood.
When we emerged from the forest at Hohkelch, we already got some pretty views, and despite the sun, the snow was quite deep at places. Snowshoes were not necessary but would not have been completely out of place. But once we traversed more to the southern side of the hill there was only very little snow, and it was a good place for our right-under-the-top break in the sun, with a snack and yes our moose thermos full of tea, which was nice.
When we got to the top we were intrigued by a wooden box with circular holes high up and a snowman. After a close investigation, we soon discovered that the snowman was just built by some kids, but the wooden box remained mystery – no visible entrance from any side, no discernible use. Iestyn studied carefully the scribbles at the picnic table nearby but to no avail.
The views were pretty but there was not much to do, so we decided to slide down on the other side of the hill, to get back to the valley where we left Claude. According to our guidebook simplified tiny map there should be some trails going down that way, and we knew the general direction, so there was no way to get lost. What we did not really think through was the fact that we were going down the shady side, and also the steeper cliffy one. So, in no time at all, we found ourselves thigh-deep in wet snow with every step, no path in sight, and falling over our pretty heads. Since we’ve been know to be pretty feisty in situations like this, we just sucked it up, and persevered determinedly until we part slid, part toiled and part plowed through that white mush under the snowline, found a trail and finished still in good mood but mighty tired of the day.
12
Feb 12
Snowshoeing around Kandel
Beautiful sunny Sunday, only like -20 degrees outside, perfect conditions to run around in snowshoes. Of course, only if you happen to have fancy cool snowshoes, otherwise gaiters have to do. We decided for a roundtrip around Kandel because the views from there are pretty in good weather. We took our guidebook and also picked up our friend Hendrik on the way, not too early in the morning as usual, but not too late either.
Up on Kandel we first headed for the very top, with nice panoramas all around. My snowshoes worked nicely, I could run around in deep snow like it’s no-one’s business. We did not spend too much time up on the top, as it was quite cold, and we set out on our roundtrip, getting lost almost immediately.
Of course in a place like Kandel it does not really matter if you get lost, we just sort of kept our direction, and didn’t mind the rough deep unforgiving snow with hidden steep rock faces where one step on the wrong spot could be the matter of life and death and all that in blinding blizzard… ok, exaggerating a little bit, but truth is we were a bit surprised to arrive at Gummenhofhütte after good two hours of wandering, while according to our map that place was no further than 1,5 kms from the top of Kandel. Nevermind, at least we were back on the map and continued according to plan.
From here it was a piece of cake – soon we found Thomashütte with a pretty view, and continued over Kandelfelsen back to Claude. Frankly, we still did not arrive to Claude from the right direction technically speaking, so we must have strayed a bit somewhere from our guide-prescribed tour, but may be we also had more soft deep powder snow to play with on our way.
17
Jan 12
Skiing at Feldberg
Black Forest is pretty overall, and in winter there are nice skiing possibilities for cross-country skiing. There are some downhill slopes as well, although mostly just kiddie type. Even the biggest local slope, Feldberg, is just a molehill really (not to mention the lift is so overpriced for what it is). But when the weather is good, it provides good fun nevertheless, and beautiful Alp views on top.
Iestyn does not ski, so he walks around and takes pictures. And also tests our new fancy red moose thermos, which keeps tea nice and warm for a long time. All the way until the sunset.
Here’s the panorama I took while Gina was skiing away all gloriously:
25
Dec 11
Schauinsland on christmas day
After unwrapping our beautiful presents in the morning (we must have been good last year, especially Iestyn), and having lots of christmas cookies and other sweets, we decided to go for a short walk up Schauinsland, to make space in our bellies for the epic christmas dinner. We could not really have gone for a longer walk, as epic christmas dinners take a long time to make (even though we already prepared lots of stuff the day before).
Schauninsland was full of snow, and had a strange lid of grey clouds hanging over the whole of the sky, except at the end over the horizon, where the sky ran out of clouds and showed some Alp peaks in the sun. We went up the tower, and both of us made it all the way to the top, which was great. Iestyn made pictures, while I was playing with the tiny icicles made by snow and wind.
27
Nov 11
St. Peter, St. Märgen
First advent Sunday, sunny but cold with fierce wind – we decided to go for a mellow trip. There are two monasteries near Freiburg, in beautiful locations in the midst of Black Forest hills. We first visited Sankt Peter, which was pretty but the service was in full blow (and no, we did not think of it ahead), so we could not really admire the insides, and the historical library was closed already. Outside there was not much to do (did I mention the awful biting wind?).
So soon enough we were on our way to Sankt Märgen. They had a christmas market going on, on which I got a pretty little heart-shaped decoration for our wall. We also checked the surroundings and the horse, and called it quits (I mentioned the arctic wind, right?)
29
Oct 11
Wutachschlucht
As Gina has been away for a couple of weeks in Sarajevo, Bosnia with work, we hadn’t been anywhere for a bit. I went with a friend to stay for the night at the Wutachschlucht, and when Gina got back, I showed her the photos I took from our trip, which was a very nice trip – but very misty and steamy weather.  Gina thought it would be fantastic idea (well, in reality I said something along the lines of ‘let’s go somewhere or whatevs’) to head on down there again, as it was a glorious sunny day – she was right (as usual). The valley in the sun was a whole different place, really nice.
Wutachschlucht is a narrow gorge, with about three different sections. It’s believed to be the youngest valley in the whole of Europe, which formed about 10,000 years ago when the Ice retreated. It’s a beautiful place, full of wildlife and vegetation. The route we took was roughly 14km long, that starts from the village of Bonndorf and ends close to Wutach – where we were to catch the tourist bus back to Claude…
We headed out early, and missed the morning traffic. Driving up the Hollental Valley out of Freiburg is always a pleasant experience, but in the Autumn, the whole Valley shines in epic Autumn colors – something I’ve always wanted to see here in the Black Forest.
Arriving in Bonndorf, we left Claude at the car park, and headed North towards the valley. Gina was armed with my camera, and happily merrily took some photos of the Autumn scenes all around.
We headed down into the gorge, and began following the stream steadily downhill. It’s a great big deep valley, which gets deeper really quickly, and without knowing it, you get dwarfed by the 100 year old trees that surrounds the gentle stream. There are some nice bridges that cross the river frequently, which makes the trek very ‘tourist friendly’ – which it certainly was on this sunny Autumn day.
As we continued happily down the stream, the gorge opens up, and the stream joins a huge river, and  you start to see all around. Today, from what I can gather, was Gina’s day of experimenting on new techniques with the camera that she’s recently learned from somewhere. One of the techniques she liked today was what she called ‘Fast Zooms’ :) (never called it that once. I call it ‘motion pictures’)The results are posted below (truth said, a little bit too much motion in the second one. But the first one came out right.):
After walking along the wide river peacefully, the path takes a pretty great gain in height, and without knowing it, you suddenly become very high. One particular place, roughly just under half way, offers an amazing view of the river and valley, which I took the opportunity to take a panorama:
As you can see, the Autumn colors really make the place look amazing. As we continued further, the terrain changes again, this time, the river flows along, and carves into these great big Limestone cliffs. The cliffs themselves looks so strange, as you can clearly see the layers of rock so clearly.
And this is pretty much the end of the tour of the Valley. From here, it was a gentle walk though some trees, and over a few bridges, and along the river. As the tour was winding down, still on her Experimenting high, Gina also took the opportunity to create some lovely macro shots of the vegetation (oi! i’ve had macro under my belt practically before you were born – this was no experimenting! just doing what I do best.).
We came out the other end, just by the bus stop where the bus would take us back to Bonndorf, and to Claude. But, with a bit of detective work on the timetable, we figured out that the last bus had indeed left about an hour earlier, so we were faced with an interesting situation – how do we get back to Claude, that was sitting lonely 14km away? To think about it, we headed to the hut at the side of the road to have a delicious, well earned coffee and cake:
After filling our bellies, we’d decided that we couldn’t call a taxi to come and pick us up – so the only other option was to try our hand at thumbing. So, we headed back to the bus stop, and using my best thumbing moves, we managed to pull the third car over – which was also heading to Bonndorf – result! Our driver was originally from Bonndorf, so he knows the situation with the bus very well, and because we looked like a cool pair of hikers, he decided to pick us up. He took us all the way to Claude – which was fantastic, as we both really didn’t fancy walking back.