Exploring the Black Forest

A few years ago, my wife and I went to Germany, Austria and Switzerland for our 10th anniversary. It was our first vacation in Europe, and we chose this area because of the wonderful history, the food, and the amazing breweries :) Rather than traveling throughout a large area, we decided to hone in on southern Germany (Bavaria and the Black Forest regions), as well as bordering areas of Austria and Switzerland, visiting Basel and Salzburg.

I'll write more later on the rest of this trip, but for now I want to talk more about the beautiful Black Forest region of Germany - the source region for the Danube River. Our homebase for exploring the Black Forest was a small resort community called Titisee, part of the larger Titisee-Neustadt area. We couldn't have picked a more wonderful place to visit for several days. We didn't rent a car when we were in Germany, so we took backpacks and 'rode the rails' throughout our journey. It didn't take too long to figure out that we were a little out of shape, but by the end of the trip we were so used to walking and hopping from train to train that it was strange to get back in a car again!

On our two week journey, we stayed in small, independently owned hotels, pensions, guest apartments and farm stays, and we never regretted staying away from the big chain hotels! In Titisee we stayed in a guest apartment, and to this day, we are in email contact with the owners - who even had goats in their hilly yard to eat the grass! We even were able to help put the goats into their pen at night (which was VERY interesting, by the way!) It was a remarkable opportunity to really experience the culture in the Black Forest. In fact, one evening after we came back from dinner (yummy by the way!), the owner - Max - asked us if we wanted to go to town for a walk with him. We jumped at the chance, and ended up walking for at least two hours. Max loved showing off his community, and we asked him about a million questions, which he loved!

You can pick just about any community in the Black Forest as a base, and if you are going to Germany, please do not leave this off your itinerary. The train trip into the Black Forest is one of the most scenic in all of Germany, so if you have a chance to 'ride the rails' - I would highly recommend it as well! Also, be sure you don't miss a trip to Triberg, the home of the cuckoo clock and the best Black Forest cake I've ever had!

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I also highly recommend going to the famed Oktoberfest in the fall - we had a blast ;)