Freiburg - with a day trip to Freudenstadt

No frost or snow overnight. Regulation 2-bread-roll-breakfast.

We decided to go to Freudenstadt for a day trip because that is where a friend of ours, Verena, comes from, and we wanted to get her something from there. Freudenstadt is in the Black Forest, and is rather out of the way, with it's biggest claim to fame apparently being the gigantic market square (Germany's biggest) that is the centre of town. Tim mapped out and wrote out the route to take, which turned out to be a very winding road through lots of mountain passes.

As we travelled away from Freiburg we started to see frost on the ground and houses, and then there were small patches of snow, then more snow, and then snow covering everything, and then when we got to Freudenstadt we realised it wasn't sprinkling anymore - it was snowing. There were lots of tunnels through mountains along the way, the longest being almost 2km long.

When we got to Freudenstadt we accidentally found the town centre, so parked the car and went shopping for Verena. There wasn't much in the way of souvenirs but we found a few things, including a few things with her name on them (not a common name in Australia!). After finally locating a cafe where you didn't have to stand up to have your drink/food (quite common in Germany) we had some morning tea.

We visited a bookshop in our wanderings, and came across a very Australian book, in German - Jackie French's Diary of a Wombat. We couldn't resist buying it for our son, but I can't help but think that the shopkeeper should be glad we bought it from her, as I imagine there wouldn't be an enormous demand for books about wombats in deepest Black Forest country.

After a little more wandering we got some lunch and then headed for the car. As we came down out of the mountains the snow cleared up and the sun came out - the first sustained sunlight since we had arrived in Germany!

We went back to the youth hostel, unloaded, and then caught the tram into Freiburg again to do some more shopping. We also discovered another internet cafe, so we checked our emails and the Australian news. As evening started to fall we took some photos of the streets we were wandering. As it was just after Christmas they still had all their Christmas decorations up which made them look all the more inviting.

As we hadn't booked our evening meal (what a shame!) we went back to the Italian restaurant again, where the waitress remembered us from 2 nights before. We were highly suspicious of Tim's order of Tortellini boscaiola - it was tomatoey and had peas - but it was still nice anyway.

We really liked Freiburg, apart from the youth hostel, which wasn't the best in terms of service or food, and we were sad to leave. It had a nice atmosphere, feels safe, and has lots of nice shops. Hubert, our academic friend, also told us that Freiburg has the reputation of being the warmest city in Germany, so that's a plus too, when you come from a place that is never cold enough for snow, even in the dead of winter!