(Super) Fraglistic Freakin’ Freiburg

On Sunday, 8/7, the three families got into our rental cars in Lake Constance, Germany to drive to Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, by way of Stein am Rhein, Switzerland. The large group had lunch at Burg Hoheningen, a castle overlooking Stein am Rhein before the five of us spent half an hour walking around the picturesque Swiss Alp town with the Rhein running by it (on its way to Lake Constance). The drive that followed was beautiful from a visual standpoint (as opposed to the car backseat noises) as the Swiss Alps gave way to the Black Forest.

The next day was our only full one in Freiburg. The main sites in the Alstadt (German for old town — I think!) are the 800-year-old cathedral anchoring the main square, the merchant guild hall and stalls off that square, and the sites of the two gates that anchored the old town’s fortifications once upon a time. My great-great-grandfather was born in Freiburg and came from a family of merchants and chess champions. The merchant hall was closed and there were no old-timey chess competitions going on, so I snapped just 1-2 pics of the merchant hall or with it as a background to a selfie. (My kids were very close by, but were more interested in a stall selling toys to examine with short friends than a place fifteen feet away where their ancestors might’ve gone to work every day.)

After lunch that day, Kiera, Luke, Tyler, Elliot, and I walked up to a vista on the top of the hill bordering the old town. This city is one of the most environmentally conscious ones in the world. It’s very green, pedestrian friendly, and easy to navigate with a light rail. It’s actually in the heart of the Black Forest even the trees were long gone by medieval times. Also, there’s a shoe store with a name likely translating to “Luke’s Shoes” that unfortunately does not carry boys’ sneakers, although not everyone was equally disappointed about that.

As we had the night before, the three families took over an outdoor lounge in the building where we were renting apartments for extended dinner. The video included in this entry is from Ryan’s turn in a Telephone game in which he’d seeded the game with “apple juice,” which made it all the way back around to his glee.

Everyone departed on the 9th, either by train to Luxembourg or by air out of the Basel, Switzerland airport fifty minutes south. It was a fun week in a place new to us with old friends. Also, Ryan picked up the British inflection of two of his friends.

My only Freiburg regret is failing to take a picture of the parking job that Tyler and I jointly accomplished on the first night when we arrived too late in Freiburg to return our cars in the underground garage, but wanted to avoid parking on the street and risking fines from not having stickers that we hadn’t been able to purchase as part of a congestion traffic fighting effort. One Europcar dedicated parking space . . . two cars.