A walk through the Black Forest
August 4, 2023 7:07 AM Subscribe
Help us plan a five-night road trip to the Black Forest in Germany! We plan to travel to/from Utrecht in the Netherlands in mid-August. Please suggest places to visit and stay, food to eat, things to do! We are especially interested in lush scenery, folklore and spooky stuff, and nighttime views of the Milky Way.
We would be especially grateful for:
- A suggested round-trip route (we can comfortably drive about 300-350km per day) starting and finishing in Utrecht
- Best places to eat Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte
- Beautiful places to enjoy the forest that don't involve strenuous hiking
- Places to go swimming
- Folklore/spooky/weird stuff
- Places to enjoy the glorious night sky
- Reasonably priced accommodation
- Delicious things to eat and drink
- Gothic ruins, etc
- General advice for travelling in Germany as anglophone tourists
Thank you!
We would be especially grateful for:
- A suggested round-trip route (we can comfortably drive about 300-350km per day) starting and finishing in Utrecht
- Best places to eat Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte
- Beautiful places to enjoy the forest that don't involve strenuous hiking
- Places to go swimming
- Folklore/spooky/weird stuff
- Places to enjoy the glorious night sky
- Reasonably priced accommodation
- Delicious things to eat and drink
- Gothic ruins, etc
- General advice for travelling in Germany as anglophone tourists
Thank you!
I spent a few days in Freiburg im Breisgau and found it truly lovely. On the way there, would you consider poking through Duesseldorf or Koeln? I did many day trips there when I lived nearby and enjoyed them.
My general advice as an Anglophone in Germany: learn a few handy phrases, figure out some important food/drink/number words, and generally be patient. I navigated many many situations with pantomime, using English slowly, and admitting "ich spreche ein bisschen deutsch". (One time, I was struggling to pay for something and said "sorry, ich spreche kein deutsch" and the cashier noted that, no, in fact, I spoke a tiny bit if I'd gotten that far. True!)
posted by knile at 8:44 AM on August 4, 2023
My general advice as an Anglophone in Germany: learn a few handy phrases, figure out some important food/drink/number words, and generally be patient. I navigated many many situations with pantomime, using English slowly, and admitting "ich spreche ein bisschen deutsch". (One time, I was struggling to pay for something and said "sorry, ich spreche kein deutsch" and the cashier noted that, no, in fact, I spoke a tiny bit if I'd gotten that far. True!)
posted by knile at 8:44 AM on August 4, 2023
Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte
If you are hotelling you might find this served at breakfast. It was where I stayed, but seemed a bit rich for my brekkie. Which is how I spent 6 days in the black forest and never got any. Do not make my terrible mistake! Force it down with morning coffee.
posted by biffa at 9:46 AM on August 4, 2023
If you are hotelling you might find this served at breakfast. It was where I stayed, but seemed a bit rich for my brekkie. Which is how I spent 6 days in the black forest and never got any. Do not make my terrible mistake! Force it down with morning coffee.
posted by biffa at 9:46 AM on August 4, 2023
On your route:
Heidelburg is nice, very historical.
Cologne is worth a visit, just for the cathedral, even if you are not religious. It looms. If you stop for food in Cologne the local beer is Kolsch, served in 200ml glasses, they keep filling your glass unless you cover it.
The direct road from Utrecht mirrors the Rhine, there are a few places on the Rhine which are central in German folklore so following the river, expecially from Bonn to Bingen, gives a lovely riverside drive but also some places to visit. Search for Rhine Gorge.
I have worked on the basis that you go to Freiburg which is a lovely small city on the edge of the Southern Black Forest but you can get local trains out in the direction of Titisee and beyond to see some of the forest proper, cycling, walking etc.
posted by biffa at 9:59 AM on August 4, 2023
Heidelburg is nice, very historical.
Cologne is worth a visit, just for the cathedral, even if you are not religious. It looms. If you stop for food in Cologne the local beer is Kolsch, served in 200ml glasses, they keep filling your glass unless you cover it.
The direct road from Utrecht mirrors the Rhine, there are a few places on the Rhine which are central in German folklore so following the river, expecially from Bonn to Bingen, gives a lovely riverside drive but also some places to visit. Search for Rhine Gorge.
I have worked on the basis that you go to Freiburg which is a lovely small city on the edge of the Southern Black Forest but you can get local trains out in the direction of Titisee and beyond to see some of the forest proper, cycling, walking etc.
posted by biffa at 9:59 AM on August 4, 2023
As prep, you might read Patrick Leigh Fermor's A Time of Gifts, the story of his journey from Hoek van Holland to Istanbul in 1933. Someone has mapped his itin; which skirts the top of the Schwarzwald.
posted by BobTheScientist at 11:49 AM on August 4, 2023
posted by BobTheScientist at 11:49 AM on August 4, 2023
Maulbronn Monastery is a UNESCO World Heritage Site just north of the Black Forest, about 10 km northeast of Pforzheim. It definitely ticks your “Gothic ruins, etc” box (and is happily not ruined). The story of the site’s foundation and evolution was fascinating and well-told using the English audio guide. Everyone at the ticket sales point/gift shop spoke English and Google Translate got me the rest of the way with translations of wall carvings. I got there from Karlsruhe (itself a not-uninteresting stop if you’re interested in visiting a kind of low-key small-city destination nearish the Black Forest and also learning about German constitutional law) on a train and then a bus but it seems pretty close to whatever route you’d be taking along the Rhine.
posted by mdonley at 3:34 PM on August 4, 2023
posted by mdonley at 3:34 PM on August 4, 2023
Thought of two more spots which are not exactly in the Black Forest but sort of on the way from Utrecht:
An hour’s stop in Trier would let you visit the highlight of the town’s UNESCO-listed Roman sites, the pre-Gothic not-ruined-currently and deeply architecturally influential Aula Palatina/Basilica of Constantine, built by, um, Constantine, starting around 300. (And if you’re going to drive right past the largest extant hall from antiquity, you might as well get there on the oldest bridge north of the Alps a few blocks away.)
A little further south, I think you’d also love the UNESCO-listed Völklingen Ironworks near Saarbrücken; the scale defies description, it is deeply folklore-y (in the sense that so many stories of the people who spent time there are made very vivid)/spooky/weird, and you can climb all over it with hard hats they loan you! English was throughout the site, the exhibits, the audio guide and the café. I got the train from Saarbrücken.
posted by mdonley at 3:57 PM on August 4, 2023
An hour’s stop in Trier would let you visit the highlight of the town’s UNESCO-listed Roman sites, the pre-Gothic not-ruined-currently and deeply architecturally influential Aula Palatina/Basilica of Constantine, built by, um, Constantine, starting around 300. (And if you’re going to drive right past the largest extant hall from antiquity, you might as well get there on the oldest bridge north of the Alps a few blocks away.)
A little further south, I think you’d also love the UNESCO-listed Völklingen Ironworks near Saarbrücken; the scale defies description, it is deeply folklore-y (in the sense that so many stories of the people who spent time there are made very vivid)/spooky/weird, and you can climb all over it with hard hats they loan you! English was throughout the site, the exhibits, the audio guide and the café. I got the train from Saarbrücken.
posted by mdonley at 3:57 PM on August 4, 2023
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posted by Don_K at 8:26 AM on August 4, 2023