In summer, we did a 10 day road trip through parts of Germany, Switzerland, Italy and France. Our itinerary was: Berlin – Weimar – Heidelburg – Freiburg – Lucerne – Lake Como – La Spezia – Cinque Terre – Bussana Vecchia – Monaco – Éze – Gorges du Verdon – Moustiers-Ste-Marie – Valensole – Chamonix – Tübingen – Swäbisch Hall – Berlin.

We drove towards Freiburg from Heidelberg on Day 2 of our road trip around part of Europe (see here for the itinerary), arriving in the evening at our accommodation: a room on a wine farm just outside of Freiburg. Our hostess was lovely, and gave us a good tip for dinner, an Italian restaurant in their village. we headed straight there as it was dinner time and enjoyed a delicious meal, with the owner bringing us bread with olive oil, parmesan, aïoli and other toppings and a surprise starter of smoked salmon and cream cheese roulade. That was followed by the mail meal (risotto) and of course we accompanied it with wine, since we were right in the wine region.

After we arrived back at the wine farm, the other guests at the hotel, some Canadians who were travelling around Europe, welcomed us to the table, where they were sitting with the owners, and share the dessert they’d bought. The owners also gave us some wine. It was a lovely warm evening and it was nice to sit outside and hear about the places they’d visited. Eventually it was late and we all headed off to bed. I didn’t sleep very well as it was quite hot and before going to sleep our friend had said to keep the windows closed because of mosquitoes.

Day 3 dawned on the wine farm. After buying some wine (the joy of a road trip is that you can stuff whatever you like in the car boot), we headed off to explore Freiburg. The day before my friend and I had both been a little disappointed with Heidelberg – it was nice, but so many people had raved about it being beautiful and a must-see that perhaps our expectations were too high. So we were wondering whether Freiburg would be as good as promised. It was! As soon as we reached the gates to the old town, I knew I was going to like the place.

There are many beautiful buildings in Freiburg, and my hand was permanently glued to the camera. The other special thing about Freiburg is that there are “Bächle” everywhere – channels of water running down the streets. They say that if you accidentally step in one (which could easily happen!) that you will marry a Freiburger. We were curious to see if our single friend would step in one, but she managed to avoid it. Apparently the Bächle were once used as a water supply.

Another thing you will notice when you walk around is the lovely cobbled streets, and the pictures on the streets made out of stones.

After walking around a bit, admiring the lovely buildings, we looked for a place to have breakfast and found one that looked nice. It was a delicious, big breakfast for a day that we knew would be filled with lots of walking. Since Freiburg is in the region of the Black Forest, we had to try some Black Forest cake, even though it was breakfast time, because we’d be gone by tea-time.

Cuckoo clocks also come from the Black Forest region. I was so temped to buy one at a shop on the town square, but my husband said I should rather wait. He thought I would find one cheaper somewhere else, but actually I think it was a pretty good deal. Hopefully we’ll go back to the Black Forest region sometime  – I’d love to go hiking there anyway. Here’s some photos of the town square.

Freiburg is a university town, and if you go anywhere near the university buildings or the library, you’ll see thousands of bicycles!

After breakfast we wandered around the streets some more, until we realized we should head off as we had a long way to drive. The next stop would be Lucerne/Luzern in Switerland, and we would be sleeping that night in Lake Como in north Italy. I’ll leave you with some more photos of beautiful Freiburg!