Beauty In Black Forest

It’s called Hollental--the Vale of Hell--and you reach it by following the gurgling Rotbach River until you arrive at a deep ravine nestled between two almost vertical walls of rock in the Black Forest.

At its narrowest point atop one of the stone faces, an eight-foot statue of a magnificently antlered stag stands ready to jump across the gorge.

In 1856, according to Black Forest legend, a stag escaped from pursuing hunters by leaping the 30-foot-wide chasm, which has since been broadened to accommodate a main highway and a railway line. To commemorate the episode, the 700-pound copper monument was erected to the daring stag.

Stretching about 100 miles from Karlsruhe in the north to Basel in the south, the Black Forest is a giant massif, 37 miles across at its widest point. It consists of dense woods, plateaus, wild gorges, rivers, lakes and valleys.

The thick pine forest also contains beech and spruce, interspersed with oak and fir.

It is divided into the northern Black Forest, which includes Baden-Baden, and the southern Black Forest, which draws the heaviest flow of tourists. The mountainous Upper Black Forest is centered around a glacial mountain lake called the Titisee.

About 200 towns dot the Forest. Most are connected by paved roads, although a few can only be reached by foot or wagon.

The many scenic routes in the Black Forest provide a relaxing diversion. You can visit the Black Forest by car, on horseback, atop a horse-drawn sled, on cross-country skis, by bus or pack mule or simply on foot along its well-marked paths. Once away from the highway, it is easy to find stillness in the Black Forest. Even footsteps are muffled by a carpet of pine needles.

Nothing charms visitors more than the small towns that dot the woods. Black Forest villages maintain old market squares, ancient clock towers and windows bedecked with overflowing flower boxes. Shopkeepers sell bread, pastries and the local specialty, onion cakes.

Hinterzarten (pop. 2,200) is one of my favorites. Sitting on a broad plateau at an altitude of 2,903 feet above the Hollental Valley, it’s a half-hour drive or train ride from Freiburg.

Hinterzarten is about 800 years old and has 14 hotels and 10 pensions, 50 guest houses, 185 holiday apartments and 180 private lodgings available to visitors.

My favorite Hinterzarten hotel is the luxurious Park-Hotel Adler, which has been open since Martin Luther’s time and once housed Marie Antoinette, who arrived in 1770 with her bridal procession of 100 carriages. It is set on 3,717 square feet of private park.

Nearby Hochenschwand is perched on a plateau at 3,330 feet and cradled in a carpet of woods. Hochenschwand has a mild climate that carries through much of the winter. It, too, is ski country and also a place in which to walk and relax.

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There are no airports in the Black Forest. You can fly to Basel, Switzerland, from which trains frequently depart for Freiburg. From Freiburg take a half hour train ride to Hinterzarten. Trains run about every 45 minutes.

Other airports within a one-day trip of the Black Forest are Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Zurich.

However, the best access to the Black Forest is by auto or bus, since many good highways lead into the region.

The Park-Hotel Adler has 11 single rooms ranging in price from about $80 to $110 U.S., and 66 double rooms from $135 to $240. Its French restaurant charges about $20 for entrees, while the Adler-Eck charges $14.

Hinterzarten’s smaller hotels, such as the Zartenbach and the Waldhaus Tannenbaum, have single rooms for about $28, doubles for about $55. For information and reservations in Hinterzarten, write to the Kur-und Verkehrsamt at D-7824 Hinterzarten.

In Hochenschwand, the Porten Hotel Kurhaus has 18 single rooms from $35 to $45, 31 double rooms at $80 to $90. The hotel maintains a variety of dining rooms, one of which features a kitchen serving some of the best French dishes around. The Black Forest cherry cream cake, schwarzwalderkirschtorte , from the Porten’s master bakers, is the pinnacle of desserts.

Hochenschwand’s smaller hotels--the Gasthof Alpenblick and the Gerghotel Steffi--have single rooms for about $25, doubles for about $55.

For more information and reservations in Hochenschwand, write to P.O. Box 7821, Hochenschwand.

There are many private rooms available in both towns, averaging about $8.60 per person per night and including breakfast. Private apartments run from about $8 to $45 per day.

It is best to book ahead for Black Forest-area accommodations. A local tax of 90 cents per person per day is added on to room prices.

For skiing and other winter sports, December through February is a good time to visit. However, the Black Forest shows itself to full advantage in the summer.

Autumn is a good time for hikers, as are April and May, when the weather is mostly cool but nearly always sunny. Summer months often bring short rain showers.

Health spas are open year round. Reservations are necessary.

More information on travel to West Germany is available from the German National Tourist Office, 444 S. Flower St., Suite 2230, Los Angeles 90071, (213) 688-7332.