Three days in Freiburg: closer to Basel than to Berlin, in every sense

The minster and the market square on the first afternoon, the cable car up to the Black Forest ridge and the old masters afterwards, and the hill above the town before the train.

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Length
3 days, 2 nights
Where you stay
Freiburg
Places
6 across 3 days
OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles Data from OpenStreetMap

Freiburg is in the far south west corner of the country, where Germany, France and Switzerland almost meet. Basel is under an hour away, Strasbourg not much more, and Berlin might as well be in another time zone. The result is a city that behaves more like the upper Rhine than like Germany: wine rather than beer at dinner, an Alsatian accent to the food, vines on the hills and the highest number of sunshine hours in the country.

It is also the greenest city in Germany in both senses. The Black Forest starts at the edge of the suburbs, a tram and a cable car take you to a ridge above 1,200 metres in under an hour, and the city has spent fifty years building solar districts, banning cars from the old town and voting accordingly. Twenty five thousand students keep it from becoming pious about any of it.

The old town is small, largely rebuilt after one night of bombing in November 1944, and threaded with the Bächle: shallow stone channels of running water down the side of every street, medieval, and still there. Two nights is enough for the city and the mountain above it.

Highlights

  • A tower of open stone tracery that stood through the night the town around it burned
  • A daily market around the minster, and a long red sausage eaten in a roll at the sausage stall
  • Running water down every street, and a superstition about what happens if you step in it
  • A cable car to a ridge with the Alps on the horizon on a clear day
  • Four metre stone prophets taken off the cathedral and shown at eye level

Where to stay

Freiburg, two nights

The old town is a compact grid between the station and the hill, with the minster in the middle of it on a square that has held a market since the twelfth century. Two medieval gates survive at the southern edge, and the Schlossberg rises directly behind the eastern one.

Stay inside the old town or immediately around it. It is small enough that nothing is more than ten minutes from anything else, and the tram runs from the station door if you land somewhere further out.

Day by day

Day 1 in Freiburg

The minster, the market and a beer garden

The minster took three hundred years to build and its tower is the reason to come. It is 116 metres of red sandstone finishing in a spire of open stonework so fine it looks like lace from the square, and it was completed in the fourteenth century, which almost no other great German church tower managed before the modern age. On the night of 27 November 1944 the bombing flattened the streets around it and the tower stood.

Climb it if the queue is short. Then walk round the outside and look up: the gargoyles are an unusually good set and one of them, on the south side, is aiming its backside at the old bishop's palace, which the masons apparently meant.

A market has run on this square every day but Sunday for centuries: flowers and vegetables on the north side, and on the south the stall that sells the lange Rote, a sausage far longer than the roll it comes in, which you eat standing up. In the evening, the brewpub two streets west makes its own beer and has a chestnut garden behind it.

  1. 15:00

    Freiburg Minster

    Religious

    Three centuries of Gothic with a lace spire finished in the Middle Ages. Free to enter, a few euros for the tower, and walk the outside for the gargoyles.

  2. 17:00

    Historical Merchants' Hall

    Architecture

    The red arcaded merchants' hall of the 1530s on the south side of the square, with Habsburg emperors in stone across the front of it. Five minutes and a photograph.

  3. 18:30

    Have a beer at Feierling

    Other

    A brewpub with its own unfiltered beer, a vaulted hall for the winter and a chestnut beer garden across the street for the summer. Two minutes from the market square.

With more time: The town hall square, two minutes west, is where the city drinks in the early evening under lime trees, and the covered market hall between the two is the cheapest dinner in the centre if the brewpub is full.

Day 2 in Freiburg

Up to the ridge, and the cathedral's stonework at eye level

Go up in the morning while the air is clear. Tram 2 and bus 21 get you to the valley station in half an hour, and the gondola climbs to a ridge at 1,284 metres in twenty minutes. On a good day you see the Rhine plain, the Vosges across the border in France and the Alps beyond Basel. There is a lookout tower at the top, a mountain inn, and walking routes in every direction if you want to make an afternoon of it.

Back in town, the Augustinermuseum is the reward for a hot morning. It is built into a former monastery and holds the medieval art of the upper Rhine, including Grünewald, Cranach and Baldung Grien.

The best part is architectural. The original sculpture from the minster was taken down to save it from the weather and is displayed here: four metre prophets, gargoyles and saints standing at floor level in the old church nave, so you look at faces carved to be seen from sixty metres up from about a metre away. Finish with the gates: two survive from the medieval wall at the southern edge of the old town, one of them with a fast food outlet built into the base of it, which is a very Freiburg compromise.

  1. 09:15

    Schauinsland

    Nature

    A cable car to a 1,284 metre ridge in the northern Black Forest, twenty minutes up, with a tower, an inn and marked paths at the top. Closed in high wind, pointless in cloud.

  2. 13:30

    Lunch back in the old town

    Eat

    The market stalls pack up around one, so if you are back late the covered hall or the streets around the university are the better bet.

  3. 14:30

    Augustinermuseum

    Culture

    Upper Rhine painting and sculpture in a former monastery, with the minster's original statues and gargoyles displayed at eye level. Two hours.

  4. 16:45

    Martinstor

    Historic

    The older of the two surviving city gates, thirteenth century, with a burger chain fitted into the ground floor and its sign on the medieval stone. Free, and a two minute walk from the museum.

With more time: The other gate, a few hundred metres east, carries a large painted panel of a merchant from 1572 and marks the bottom of the hill. It is the natural way to start the walk up if you would rather do the Schlossberg this evening than tomorrow morning.

Day 3 in Freiburg

The Schlossberg, and out

The hill behind the old town had a castle on it until the French demolished it in the eighteenth century, and what is left is woodland, terraces and a view. From the eastern gate it is about fifteen minutes of steady climbing to Kanonenplatz, where the whole city lies below with the minster tower in the middle of it, and another ten to the lookout tower above.

If the legs object, there is a small funicular from the same corner that does the climb in a couple of minutes and costs very little.

Come down through the vineyards on the town side, walk back across the old town one last time, and the station is five minutes beyond the far edge of it.

  1. 08:15

    Breakfast before the climb

    Eat

    The bakeries around the market square open early and the square itself is being set up from about seven, which is the best time to see it.

  2. 09:30

    Hike up the Schlossberg

    Architecture

    Fifteen minutes uphill from the old town to a terrace with the best view of the city, and ten more to the lookout tower. Free, shaded most of the way, steep in places.

With more time: With a slower morning, the funicular saves the climb and the museum of city history in a merchant's house near the minster covers how a small Habsburg town on a trade road turned into this. Half an hour, and rarely busy.

Before you go

Getting in

Basel is forty five minutes south by train and its airport, shared between three countries, is the practical way in from most of Europe. Frankfurt is two hours north, Stuttgart about two, Strasbourg an hour and a quarter with a change at Offenburg.

The station is a five minute walk from the old town, straight down the road and under the tracks. Everything on this list except the mountain is walkable from there.

Getting around

Trams, and they are good: five lines, frequent, and the reason the old town has almost no cars in it. A day ticket is cheap and the regional version covers the buses out towards the Black Forest.

Watch your feet in the old town. The Bächle are ankle deep and unfenced, they run down the edge of most streets, and locals will tell you that anybody who steps into one accidentally ends up marrying somebody from Freiburg. Children paddle in them and nobody minds.

The cable car, and the weather

Tram 2 to its southern end, then bus 21 to the valley station, then the gondola to the ridge, about an hour door to door. It closes in high wind and there is no point at all going up in cloud, so check the webcam at the top before you set out.

The return ticket is combined with the transport fare if you buy the right version, and the waymarked routes from the summit range from a twenty minute stroll to a four hour descent on foot back into the suburbs.

Eating and drinking

This is Baden, the best eating region in Germany by most local accounts and certainly the least heavy. Flammkuchen, Maultaschen, Black Forest ham, asparagus in May and the trout out of the valley streams. The wine is from the Kaiserstuhl, an extinct volcano twenty minutes west, and the Grauburgunder from there is worth the trip on its own.

The market stalls on the minster square do the long red sausage in a small roll, which is the local lunch, and the covered market hall a few streets away is a cheap dinner from about a dozen countries.

The Black Forest, if you have a fourth day

Titisee is forty minutes away on the Hoellental line, which climbs through a gorge on a gradient steep enough that the railway needed a rack section when it opened. The lake is pretty and thoroughly touristed; get off a stop earlier or walk away from the shore and it improves immediately.

The other direction is the Kaiserstuhl for the vineyards, twenty minutes west by train, with waymarked paths between the wine villages and orchids on the terraces in spring.

What people remember about Freiburg is not any single building. It is the water in the streets, the vines on the hill at the end of the road, and the fact that the mountains are a tram ride away rather than an expedition.

Leave the evenings loose and eat outside. This is the one part of Germany where the weather can be relied on to let you.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

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Common questions

Is Freiburg worth a stop?
Yes, particularly if you are travelling between Switzerland and the Rhine or heading into the Black Forest. Two nights covers the old town and the mountain. It is also the most pleasant place in the region to base yourself for a week of walking.
Can I climb the minster tower?
Yes, for a few euros, and the entrance is round the side rather than through the west door. It is a spiral staircase with no lift and it closes in bad weather and during services. The view is over the whole plain to the Vosges.
What are the little water channels?
The Bächle, fed from the river and running through the old town since the Middle Ages, originally for fire fighting and livestock. They are open, shallow and everywhere, and stepping into one by accident is supposed to mean you will marry someone from the city.
How do I get into the Black Forest without a car?
Very easily. The cable car up the Schauinsland from a tram and a bus, or the Hoellental railway east to Titisee in about forty minutes. Regional day tickets cover both, and the guest card most hotels issue includes local transport free.
Is Freiburg expensive?
Rooms cost more than the size of the town suggests, because of trade in every season and a chronic student housing shortage. Eating out is ordinary Baden prices, the market and the covered hall are cheap, and the two best things here, the old town and the hill, are free.
What is the weather actually like?
The warmest and sunniest in Germany, which is a low bar and still noticeable: hot in summer, mild in winter, and the wine grows on the slopes around the city. The mountain above is a different climate entirely and can be ten degrees colder with snow into April.
Can I copy this itinerary and change it?
Yes. Copy it into a trip of your own, and swap the second day for a Black Forest railway day if the forecast is poor, since the cable car is worth nothing in cloud.