You Can’t Sit There- Matt and Leslie try not to F up in Europe, Ch.2 - Freiburg and Todtnauberg

(Continued vacation story/ how-to... See “You Can’t Sit There- Matt and Leslie try not to F up in Europe, Ch. 1 - Jungfrau Region” for previous)

So Tuesday morning we woke up in Murren, and OF COURSE, the sky had zero clouds. ZERO. Meaning it would have been the perfect morning to go up a mountain and see some great views haha. Oh well. That said, we still had a jaw-dropping view of all 3 peaks from Murren. Like stop you in your tracks, jaw-dropping.

On our way out town we stopped at a little cafe for cappuccinos and croissants then grabbed our gondola back down to Stechelberg and the car.

We headed towards Interlaken (about 30 minutes) to get gas and an early lunch. Interlaken is said to essentially be a backpacker’s party town- set between two gorgeous glacial lakes at the foot of the Bernese Oberlands...I can see why it would evolve into such a place, and we wanted to check it out. We were able to park for about 2 euros for 2 hours at the “Zentrale Parking Lot” (pay machine was just across a small street).

We then walked about 10 minutes to lunch at a place called Des Alpes. Although, if you are so inclined, there IS a Hooters on the same street hahah.

We were both craving a greasy, Swiss food kind of lunch, and that is exactly what we got. It was great. We sat and shared a beer, watching hang gliders and paragliders land while filling up on Swiss sausages. On our way back to the car we stopped at the Swiss Chocolate Chalet to get some legitimate Swiss chocolate. These ended up being our melt-in-your-mouth dessert snacks in the car the rest of the trip :-)

Before leaving town we found a sign saying that Interlaken is sister cities with Scottsdale, AZ....weird.

We left Interlaken and drove using “Avoid Highways”, past Thun lake

through Switzerland, past the outskirts of Bern, and into Germany. Again, we cross the Rhine River over the border annnddd… nothing. There wasn’t ANYONE official looking anywhere to be seen.

Alright then.

Before getting to our destination, we made a small pit stop at the Todtnauer Wasserfalle! There was a sign on the side of the road for it, so we parked where we saw a bunch of other cars parked, walked past a little coffee / merchandise stand, and hiked the ~10 minutes to the falls. The waterfall itself is quite impressive, and on the walk to it you get a glimpse of the dense trees which give the Black Forest its name.

On our way back out, we decided we needed a little caffeine, so we stopped at the stand to get 2 coffees. Matt thought an iced coffee sounded good, so we ordered 2 “Eiskaffes” because… what else could that be? Well let me tell you- It’s an innovative and astounding marvel of the coffee world. It is an ice cream float coffee milkshake thing. We were obviously not expecting it but deeeffiinnitelyy enjoyed the surprise!

After eating our Surprise Ice Cream! we continued to the town of Todtnauberg. It is a small town in the Black Forest where Martin Heidegger (controversial philosopher) lived and pondered life. So OBVIOUSLY Matt wanted to go see and experience the place that inspired such thought. We had found a hike called the Martin Heidegger Rundweg which is a loop along the hillsides of Todtnauberg and walks near / looks across at the hut where Martin Heidegger once lived (and that his family still owns!).

https://www.hochschwarzwald.de/Touren-im-Hochschwarzwald/Martin-Heidegger-Rundweg

Martin Heidegger Rundweg:

• Park at Radschert Wanderparkplatz for free

• There is a small hut thing you’ll pass with information including a map of many hikes accessible from the area

• The hike took us a few hours, but mostly because we stopped every 10 minutes to take pictures and enjoy the beauty

• Again there are signs marking most of the trail so it would be very difficult to get lost

• There is a private road off the trail which leads directly behind the hut. If you translate the sign next to it, it essentially says to respect the family and leave them alone. It is a public road which leads to many houses, though, so we decided to pop down quickly just to see, then head right back.

• If you DO take the road down towards the hut, you will be walking through the domain of a small cow herd… we may or may not have been intimidated and threatened violence by one of said cows for coming too close for their comfort :-)

• You pass a beautiful white chapel, and if you time it right you can hear the bells ringing from the top of the hill

• After the chapel you end up walking through a field that doesn’t FEEL like part of the trail, but then you end up on a road which goes downhill towards town. I promise you’re fine!

• We were able to reroute off the trail by splitting left instead of straight at one point and headed through town instead of around it. This got us walking by the local houses and shops, but I think probably had a steeper incline back to the parking lot

Todtnauberg is another sleepy ski town in the summer and positively peaceful. Cow attack aside, it was a great hike!

After getting back to the car, we started to head out of town, when we noticed a little hut on our right with a bunch of wooden painted mushrooms. We decided we needed to pull over to switch shoes or something anyway, so we went to check it out! After a little bit of translating we found out that it was an honor system shop! Each mushroom has a nail in the base with a little piece of paper with the price. You put the paper and your money in the "cash register" and you're done! Obviously we bought one haha.

We continued onto Freiburg once again using “Avoid Highways.” Freiburg is one of the bigger towns in the Black Forest and is home to University of Freiburg (where many a famous German attended or taught). We parked at the Schlossberggarage (I can’t remember how much it was, but it wasn’t that expensive for 24 hours), and then we walked our bags the 5-10 minutes to our hotel, Hotel Restaurant Rappen am Munsterplatz.

Hotel Restaurant Rappen am Munsterplatz:

• Münsterplatz 13, Freiburg im Breisgau, 79098, Germany - Phone: +4976131353

• Definitely more hotel like, but still had private room with common bathroom and shower in the hall

• Our window overlooked the beautiful Freiburg Munster

• Free breakfast

• Once again checked in with the bartender

• Our room was on the 3rd of 4th floor but the elevator only went up to the floor below that, so be clear on where your room is located if stairs are an issue

We went up to our room and after dropping our bags off, we headed back out for a night on the town. We went to an ACTUAL GERMAN BIERGARTEN. We were so excited haha. It was the Biergarten Brauerei Feierling. We walked up and were able to sit wherever we wanted, and a really sweet waitress brought over an english menu for us. Matt got sausages and I got… sausage salad. Now, let me explain. We did not know what this was, so basically I ordered it out of intrigue because the description actually sounded OK. What it essentially was, though, was hotdogs cut up like noodles with shredded mozzarella mixed together. It wasn’t BAD, it was just… a lot. And NOT great. For sure.

Anyway, we stuck around there for a bit and had a couple of beers. I actually had what I think was called a Radler but was basically a lemon shandy. I think they mix their pilsner type beer with real lemonade to make it! We saw this at a few places, so I think it must be a summer thing in Germany.

We left there, I believe in search of another bar to have a drink, but ended up just wandering all over town until about midnight.

We window shopped a few book stores.

We ended up over by campus and saw a zajillion bikes parked outside the library.

We saw what looked like a dance class having some sort of social in a little courtyard where they were playing music and swing dancing maybe? We were quite tempted to go join in and pretend we were students haha.

We also saw a ton of students hanging out in another open area, some of which were playing drinking games! Either Europe does not have or does not enforce strict open container laws, so pretty much everywhere we went we saw people sitting in the park or on the steps or in the courtyards having a beer or a bottle of wine. Jealous.

While walking around, Matt also told me about the bachle. These ~6 inch deep ditches on the side of the roads used to be right in the MIDDLE of the road and were used as a water source/distribution for the city. Once more modern piping was put in place underground, the bachle were either covered up or moved to the side of the roads (in 1852) to act more as drainage I think. It is local superstition that if you accidentally step in the Bächle, you will marry a Freiburger.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freiburg_B%C3%A4chle

Then right at midnight, we were practically the only ones on the street, we ended up in front of some historic looking building (though for the life of me can’t figure out what it was) RIGHT as the chorus of bells started ringing. Just one of many perfect moments on this trip :-)

Since it seemed like there were not much else going on in town, we decided to head back to our hotel room and drink some of the Sicilian wine we had brought with us while researching more of what to do the next day. Matt poured me a glass, I sat on the bed with the computer in my lap, and I proceeded to immediately fall asleep. I woke up a few times to Matt saying, “Don’t spill your wine,” so I would open my eyes, take a sip of wine, and then fall back asleep, wine glass on my stomach hahah. Oh well. Absolutely fantastic night.

Wednesday we woke up, looked out our window, and we saw that a market had popped up around the church! We decided to go down and have breakfast, drop off our bags, and walk around a bit. We were the last and/or pretty much only people eating breakfast at the hotel, so it was kind of nice because we didn’t have to worry about doing it wrong :-) It was pretty simple and stereotypically European- deli meats, cheeses, bread products, jams, yogurt, granola, etc. The cheese container thing was filled with fruit flies and the coffee looking machine thing did not have coffee, but otherwise uneventful hah. I am finding that my definition of eventful is slowly changing over my time here….

After we ate we continued back to the car to drop bags and walked around the market for about an hour. It was so neat to see so many tents filled with fruit and flowers and meats and wooden objects. We had a good time just taking it all in. I think around noon, though, we decided it was time to head out towards Triberg!!

See you soon as our story continues!! :-)