The Black Forest’s Gothic Gateway

Like every other kid in town, my 4-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter were immediately drawn to the Bachle, the shallow bubbling brooks that have skimmed the streets of Freiburg since the Middle Ages.

Despite repeated warning, Jacques and Aurelie kept hopping from bank to bank until they slipped and soaked their feet. Not to worry. The Bachle, 4 1/2 miles of winding rivulets and canals channeled off the River Dreisam, are clean these days. Once used to water the cattle, put out fires and power the mills, today the Bachle merely enchant, reflecting medieval facades and flowery balconies, turning this gateway to the Black Forest into a floating fantasy.

More than a quarter-century ago, I spent a dream of a year here as a Fulbright fellow studying fairy tales at one of the country’s oldest universities. Last August, my brother’s wedding to a Swiss woman in nearby Basel was a good occasion to whisk my wife and children back. We spent 10 days retracing my steps in Freiburg and its environs.

Once upon a solitary stroll in my scholarly days, infused with the lore of the Brothers Grimm, I stumbled onto a magical shop, a virtual honeycomb barely large enough to enter, on the bank of a canal. The walls were lined with honey jars of every hue and wildflower flavor. The stooped and fuzzy-haired old proprietor, more bee than man, buzzed from shelf to shelf and grumbled at customers, dishing out his delights.

Our feet wet from the Dreisam, my family and I set out to find the honey store I remembered so well. Its proprietor, alas, is no more, but our search drew many a knowing smile from local shopkeepers and eventually proved fruitful.

Under new, albeit less colorful, management, that haven of sweetness has been renamed the Honig Galerie. It’s still on the right bank of the Fischerau, a sleepy back street in Freiburg’s oldest quarter.

The Freiburg I remembered had an endearing, helter-skelter feel, with patches of rubble and an occasional ruin, like missing teeth in the city’s genial smile. These days, pretty as the city is, I found its buffed antique finish a bit too picture perfect, as if Walt Disney had had a hand in it.

But we continued on, my kids letting me play Pied Piper and memory leading the way to the Munsterplatz (cathedral square).

One winter night in that era of my semi-serious study, the city was silent under the first snow. I stepped out for a breather after comparing varietals at Oberkirch, a wine tavern on the Munsterplatz that’s still one of the finest watering holes in town. I looked up, and an oddly animated gargoyle caught my eye perched on a buttress of the old Munster (cathedral). Unlike other gargoyles, petrified in their Gothic grimace, this one’s gaze stayed glued to mine.

Suspecting the visage was the effect of the dry Riesling or the deceptively sweet Silvaner I drank, I blinked. The gargoyle spread its wings and swooped down, landing on a nearby ledge, magically metamorphosing into the bird of wisdom. “Ooh!” I said, one night owl to another.

Freiburg’s majestic cathedral has been eliciting oohs and aahs for seven centuries. Cultural historian Jacob Burckhardt called its steeple “the most beautiful tower in Christendom.”

Construction began around 1200 in the Romanesque style at the site of an even older church. The red-sandstone structure was expanded and altered in the French Gothic manner, the span of its nave and the elaborate sweep of its spire modeled after the cathedral in Strasbourg, France.

While its various facades support a wealth of architectural finesse and sculptural detail, with demons and gargoyles galore, it is the west tower, completed in 1330, that sets this sanctuary apart. Soaring like a tree of heaven, a pointed 380-foot polygonal spire supported by hidden iron anchors appears to hover above an octagonal superstructure set on a massive square base. When it’s lighted at night, the effect is breathtaking. It’s not bad in the daylight either.

We caught our breath and, prodded by our kids, proceeded up the winding stairway of the tower for intimate communion with the bells. “Hosanna,” the oldest, cast in 1258, still clangs. At the top we had a panoramic view of the city; France was a mere 16 miles away, Switzerland only 40. Evergreens cloaked Freiburg, and in the distance were the vineyards of the Kaiserstuhl region.

Every morning except Sunday, the cobblestone square surrounding the cathedral comes alive with an open-air market whose colors and scents vary with the season. Blossoms from field and hothouse fill the Munsterplatz in floral splendor year-round.

It’s true: The body-to-body crowd of shoppers, browsers and nibblers can get a bit overwhelming. But oh what treasures await! White asparagus from the nearby Tuniberg region makes its regal appearance in the spring. Strawberries, raspberries, currants and cherries turn everything bright red in summer. The cherries are distilled in autumn into kirschwasser, the firewater (an unsweetened brandy, actually) downed straight up or used to drench Black Forest chocolate cake, the dessert that graces every menu in town.

Enraptured at first by the fragrance of ripe berries and baskets of fresh wild Pfifferlinge (forest mushrooms), our fickle senses fell for the blatant sizzle and smell of bratwurst browning on a griddle and the smoky aroma of ham and sausage hanging from hooks in nearby butcher stalls.

Following the Bachle, we ambled down bustling storybook streets to the Rathausplatz, the town hall square shaded by tall chestnut trees.

Walking southwest past the reconstructed old University Church, I proudly led the way to the oldest surviving academic building of the university district, a former Jesuit hall built in 1683, where centuries of students, including yours truly, have juggled fact and fancy, dogma and doubt.

Founded in 1457, the Albert-Ludwigs-Universitat Freiburg has counted among its illustrious scholars the 16th century humanist Erasmus (whose vintage digs, the Haus zum Walfisch, can still be viewed), and such 20th century luminaries as sociologist Max Weber and philosophers Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger.

The university has expanded. Its 20,000 students add a youthful and cosmopolitan flavor--and a lot of bicycles--to the city.

Just outside a restored 12th century city gate looms the Schlossberg, Freiburg’s own backyard mountain--more of a hilltop, really. Best tackled on foot, it also can be mounted by cable car. Motorists have the option of a narrow winding road.

But exercise stimulates the senses, all the better to appreciate a sweeping panorama. To mobilize my children’s unwilling little legs for the climb up the Schlossberg, I again tapped memory.

Hiking up, as I did most every Sunday afternoon way back when, I sang to myself. On one particular climb, I told the children, I was crooning an old German folk song about an enigmatic little man in a purple coat who lived alone in the forest. Out from behind a towering spruce leaped a scruffy-looking individual whom I appeared to have awakened from Sunday slumber. “Give your lungs a rest!” he growled and disappeared.

I wove my yarn with a wink, adding, “Of course, his coat was purple!” The kids peered behind every tree all the way to the top.

The Black Forest (Schwarzwald), covering 4,812 square miles, is part of a glacial groundswell rising on both sides of the Rhine, marked by rounded, evergreen-covered peaks. The Feldberg, at about 4,900 feet, is the highest. Rolling valleys and crystalline lakes are nestled in between.

“Why is it called the Black Forest?” my son wondered aloud. He got his answer playing hide-and-seek with his sister in the shade of its straight-backed conifers, which stand so tall and grow so close together that they block the sun.

A half-hour’s drive to the south, on the slopes and plains along the Rhine, lies the wine country of the Kaiserstuhl and Markgraflerland. Starting in Breisach, with its own Gothic cathedral perched on a promontory, we peered across the river into France and covered a stretch of the Badische Weinstrasse (Baden Wine Road), appealing as much for its rolling vine-covered hills and charming hamlets as for their fruit.

Pressed for time, we beelined for the terraced village of Burkheim. Down the block from a 17th century town hall, the Weingut Bercher, a vintner operated by the same family since 1457, produces some of the region’s finest whites, notably full-bodied, fruity but dry Grauer Burgunder (Pinot Gris).

An hour northeast of Freiburg lies the Middle Schwarzwald, where the forest breaks for trout streams and cow pastures. A young Ernest Hemingway, who came for the fishing, lauded the landscape in a 1923 newspaper dispatch as “cool and dim as a cathedral on a hot August day.”

The Gutach River, with Germany’s highest waterfall, drops in seven stages toward the hamlet of Triberg. A plaque at the raging headwater marks the spot where Hemingway cast his rod.

Not far away, in the hilly Gutach Valley, is the Schwarzwalder Freilichtmuseum (Black Forest Open-Air Museum). The complex is composed of six traditional farmhouses, including the original Vogtsbauernhof, a vintage farmhouse that dates to 1612. Its steep, sloping, black-thatched roof, designed to shed the snow, sits like a medieval helmet pulled down low.

Like owls and honeybees, so too do weary travelers seek out their nests. Returning to town at sunset, with the kids asleep in the back of the rental car, it was comforting to see the glowing spire of the old Freiburg Munster, a great mother beckoning her children home.

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GUIDEBOOK

Footloose in Freiburg

Getting there: The nearest international airport to Freiburg is Basel, Switzerland, about 45 miles away. (Its official name is EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg.) Air France, Lufthansa and Swissair offer connecting service (change of planes) from LAX. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $1,020.

Getting around: The Hauptbahnhof (central train station) is on the Bismarckallee within walking distance of the Old Town. Hourly Intercity and Eurocity-Express trains link Freiburg to most major European cities. While the pedestrians-only Altstadt (Old Town) is a stroller’s paradise, access by car can be a driver’s purgatory. Ask about access and parking when reserving your hotel room.

Where to stay: Freiburg has an abundance of choices. Top of the line is the Colombi Hotel, Rotteckring 16, Am Colombi Park, 79098; telephone 011-49-761-21060, fax 011-49-761-31410, Internet https://www.colombi.de, e-mail colombi.freiburg@t-online.de. Restaurants, indoor pool and fitness facility. About $125 to $150 for a single, $200 to $215 for a double.

Historic Zum Roten Baren is at Oberlinden 12, 79098; tel. 011-49-761-38-78-70, fax 011-49-761-38-78-717, Internet https://www.roter-baeren.de, e-mail info@roter-baeren.de. It is Germany’s oldest inn, built in 1120. Singles start at about $95, doubles at $130.

We stayed at the considerably more modest, albeit centrally located, Hotel Rappen, Munsterplatz 13, 79098; tel. 011-49-761-31353, fax 011-49-761-382-252, Internet https://www.hotelrappen.de, e-mail rappen@t-online.de. Old hotel with cozy rooms. Singles $40 to $65, doubles $50 to $85. My family rented a suite for $100. Prices include breakfast buffet.

Outside the town of Triberg, we stayed at the homey Hotel Zum Romischen Kaiser, Sommerauerstrasse 35, 78098 Triberg; tel. 011-49-7722-4418, fax 011-49-7722-4401. Rates range from $35 for a single to $100 for a four-bed room.

Where to eat: The aforementioned Colombi Hotel offers five-star French food at $30 an entree and up, but why eat fancy French in Germany?

In Freiburg, we liked Hotel-Restaurant Lowen, Herrenstrasse 47; local tel. 33161. We savored a plate of fresh Pfifferlinge (wild mushrooms) a la creme with roasted potatoes for $11.75 and a Jagerschnitzel (pork cutlet) with noodles on the side for $9.

The rustic Weinstube Zur Traube, Schusterstrasse 17, tel. 32190, serves classic local fare and a wide selection of wines; entrees $15 and up.

Outside Triberg, Hotel Zum Romischen Kaiser (see above) served a tasty trout. Lunch and dinner; entrees run $8 to $17.

For more information: German National Tourist Office, 122 E. 42nd St., 52nd Floor, New York, NY 10168-0072; tel. (212) 661-7200, fax (212) 661-7174, Internet https://www.Germany-tourism.de and https://www.freiburg.de.