Days 12 and 13 (Thursday and Friday)- Freiburg

We traveled from Switzerland into Germany Thursday morning. Our southern Germany itinerary was pretty low-key. We wanted to see more of Germany, but we are really starting to lose steam. On Thursday, we spent a few hours walking around Freiburg. There is some interesting mosaic stonework on the sidewalks. Apparently, the pictures on the walks indicate what kind of building/store is there. For example, there was a horse on a pole outside the toy store.

On Friday, we took the train into the Schwartzwald or Black Forest. Why is it called the black forest? All I could guess is the tree density. It is a tightly packed pine forest. On a gray, winter day, the woods do look more black than green. The train was a really good deal. A 24 hour train/bus/tram card good for 2-5 people that took us well outside of Freiburg only cost 16€ ($24). This pass got us to and from Titisee, around town, and will get us to the airport tomorrow morning. To get an idea, an in-town, one-way Hamburg subway ticket costs $2.65 per way per person. This does not include regional train services.

As for our opinion of the Black Forest… We saw it. It wasn’t really any more exciting than the lake country of northern Indiana (which we’ll be seeing in a week!!). We took the 6km walk around the Titisee lake. It was cold. Only ½ of the walk was on the lake, so we spent a lot of the time on a road. If you ever go on this walk, go left around the lake rather than right. It is the nicer side. We also looked for a cuckoo clock. They were too expensive. Maybe we’ll buy one on Ebay when we get back.