Wandering in the Black Forest

When I used to travel for work, sometimes friends would join me. I remember my friend Gail coming with me to Chicago, another friend, Christine, meeting me in New York and D. and I met up a few times when I had trade shows in Europe. It was always great to have a companion even if we saw each other for just an hour or two each day – it made the trips more memorable and fun.

Last week was the first time that I was a companion for someone else’s work trip (as far as I can recall anyway). D. had a conference in Freiburg, Germany, a town in the southwest of Germany, near where the borders of France, Switzerland and Germany meet. Why not be the tagalong?

We went a few days ahead and visited Basel, Switzerland before heading to Freiburg, Germany – stay tuned for posts on each city coming soon.

Today, I’d like to write about my adventures on the last day of the trip. As D. was in his conference and my work meetings schedule light, I decided to take a little excursion out of Freiburg. We had stayed in two cities in our trip and I really longed to see the countryside in the Black Forest.

The local tourist information office conveniently had a little brochure of hikes and recommended a particularly beautiful nature hike that would start in the small village of Kirchzarten. After taking a train there, I navigated to their tourist information to obtain a larger map of the hike route. The “larger” map was still a bit short on details.

So I started off nervously, quite unsure of my ability to follow the route and worried that a search party would need to be called out when I didn’t return to the hotel by the evening.

The weather that morning was warm and sunny, with a cool breeze, perfect for a hike. The route led out of the city along a creek. The sound of the creek was so soothing.

Then, it meandered through meadows surrounded by hills.

And, soon, a farm with an impressive (and super neat) stack of firewood reminding me that the winters here are probably quite cold.

And then some young cows.

And a dedicated home built as a habitat for wild bees.

With fruit trees handily near by . . .

From there, there was a wooded path to a hilltop chapel with a beautiful view of the area. Along the way, there were many religious symbols including stations of the cross.

As I descended down the hill, I encountered some beautiful horses on a farm outside the village of Hoefen.

The walking and seeing the beautiful green landscape and animals gave me a lot of joy. I also gained a little confidence in being able to navigate on my own and communicate with the tourist info folks in my rusty German. As I made it back to the train station, the rain would arrive and I felt really grateful to have spent some time in the sun in this beautiful and peaceful part of the world.

I hope that you find some beauty and peace in your day wherever you are.