Black Forest

Freiburg was a city I had wanted to see for a long time. When my friend suggested me to go to Basel, I felt this is the time. We decided to have a small-ish trip to Freiburg and Basel.

We went from Tübingen to Freiburg with Flixbus and it was the best Flixbus I have ever been in. It had a very large legroom and no one was sitting near me. After Milan-Tübingen Flixbus, I swore that I would never get on Flixbus again, but this bus changed my mind a little.

After a 2,5 hours ride, we arrived Freiburg and left our bags in a bicycle shed of our AirBnB. Then we started walking to city center. We were going to met a friend in university library so we decided to take a tour inside the library too. It was way bigger than Tübingen’s and they had water stations (I still don’t know why we don’t have😭). Then we met with the friend and take a tour around the city. We ate lunch in a Korean restaurant. Then we climb to the cathedral’s tower.

As a first impression, city was very green and flat. You can walk or bike anywhere. Next thing we noticed was the smal water channels everywhere around the city. We sat near them, drink our lemonades and got refreshed by putting our feet into the water.

After getting enough rest, we were ready to go Schlossberg. There is no actual castle there but just the ruins. We took a walk around there and discovered an observation deck, Schlossbergturm. Of course, we had to go up. The tower itself is 33 meters and it is 143 meters above sea level. It contains 251 steps. After walking around Schlossberg, we are finishing our day eating Flammenkuchen (one of my favourite foods from these area).

The second day was set aside for hiking. We discussed about where to go while eating Flammenkuchen. After considering a few options, we decided to visit the Todnau Waterfall. We went back to our AirBnB to sleep after a long day.

Aside waterfall, we wanted to visit two places: Hasenhorn Rodelbahn and Blackforestline

Hasenhorn Rodelbahn is some kind of roller coaster which you use individual cars and adjust speed yourself. To go there, we used S-bahn from Freiburg Hbf to Kirschzarten, then Bus 140 from Kirschzarten to Todnau Busbahnhof. There are supermarkets around Todnau Busbahnhof so it was easy to get something to eat and drink. From Busbahnhof, we walked around 10 mins and arrived at the place where the chairlift departs.

We were there at the opening hour and almost no one was there yet. We paid for it and suddenly we found ourselves on the chairlift! Everything was so fast and we weren't ready! And OMG it was so long and so high! The length of the lift is 947 meters whereas the altitude difference is 364 meters! After getting over the initial shock, we enjoyed our iced coffees during the ride.

The coaster was one of the best things I’ve ever did! It was so much fun! Since I could adjust my speed, it wasn’t scary at all. I’d like to try again asap. It was 2.9km long and the speed limit was 40km/h.

Our next stop was Blackforestline. To go there, we took Bus 140 from Todnau Busbahnhof to Hangloch. We used kiosks to get our ticket.

Blackforestline is a 450-meter-long suspension bridge which is 120 meters above the ground. The bridge was more crowded than I expected but I learned that its maximum capacity is 1000 people. When I was on it, I could see the waterfall below. Proud of myself to crossing that bridge!

After crossing the bridge, we followed a hiking route that goes down to Todnau Waterfall and then comes back where we started.

Top to bottom

Bottom to top

After our hike, we went back to Freiburg. First, we stopped by our AirBnB, then we had delicious tapas in the city center. Despite being tired, we decided to go Bürgerhaus Seepark to watch the sunset. It was a great park and definitely worth to visit!

Next morning, we went to Basel thanks to Deutschlandticket. I learned that there is a German train station in Basel which was interesting.

I don’t have much to say about Basel. It was a “city”, expensive, too hot (very few trees inside the city). We joined a city tour, saw Basel Exhibition Center which had a very cool design, old town, Basel Münster, City Hall, Tinguely Fountain and Spalentor.

The thing I’d like to talk about is Basel Münster. The stairs going to the tower were too narrow and it was hard to pass even for one person. They should have warn people before going to tower because it was very claustrophobic. And the view was mid. The best thing we did was eating strawberries we brought from Freiburg in the courtyard of the cathedral. Then, we visited cartoon museum. It had a great library and we took some time to read cartoons there.

Since it was very expensive to stay in Basel, we decided to stay in a small French town called Saint-Louis and I am very glad that we did this. Next morning, we had a delicious breakfast there. I think I like French vibe more than the city vibe in Basel.

That being said, I can definitly say that Freiburg became one of my favourite cities in Germany! I’d recommend going there and I’d definitely go there again!