A journey of a hundred miles, begins with a single step; and reservations with a good travel company. (paraphrase from Tao Te Ching)
I could fill this page with quotes and phrases to echo the times we are living in – but so could you. I’ll jump to the part where we said to each other: “We have to go somewhere; we need to see more of Europe. We need to be distracted.” But how? We are not trying to catch Corona or spread it to others; how do we make an adventure and be responsible citizens? We had talked for some time of taking a hiking holiday so we could see more of a place up close; specifically, Austria was the plan. But that did not work out. Working with a specialized travel agency we decided to go hiking in the Black Forest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Forest This is a hikers paradise. There are plenty of well-marked trails and you are never truly very far from a spot of civilization, yet never really in a crowded place either. We put our money down and hoped the pandemic would not interfere with our plans. (Yes, we have travel insurance 😊)
For your introduction and relaxation, I suggest either or both of these weblinks: https://youtu.be/yWYs3DpaKsY or this one, https://youtu.be/E5dP-B7198Y They are YouTube videos with views of the Black Forest including the instrumental song from 1960’s of the same name. Or, you might refresh your childhood memories of The Brothers Grimm and their collected stories here: https://anomalien.com/the-brothers-grimms-black-forest/ For ourselves, we watched videos on hiking like this one: https://youtu.be/gvdgWd1Yg_Q
The plan: 1,000 sets of stairs worth of elevation change, 100 miles of circular and hotel-to-hotel hiking, 10 days, 4 hotels, and at least 2 waterfalls. We purchased new hiking pants and jackets (luckily never needed the jackets) and our first sets of hiking poles. Backpacks were inventoried; water bottles, snacks, masks, sanitizer, and handi-wipes. We were good to go.
Note, that we also took about a thousand pictures between us. They all look essentially the same, beautiful trees, miles of vistas, story-book houses and buildings, and shimmering water. This recap is just a smattering of our favorite pictures or locations.
Flying into Basel, Switzerland we were transferred to our first hotel in Feldberg-Falkau, the Hotel Peterle. We used the remainder of this first day, which was not pre-routed for us, to make our way to Lake Titisee. A beautiful, glacier-formed, but also fairly touristy (especially by the bus parking), lake in the Black Forest. https://www.black-forest-travel.com/landscape/titisee.html
Hotel and Restaurant Peterle , first three nights
The next day, it was on to the top of Mt Feldberg. This was just part of a challenging day which totalled over 13 miles of hiking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feldberg_(Black_Forest)
Happy Hikers, Day 1
Ready to go
But, which way? 
Thata way! 
Yes, I did just come down that trail. So glad we brought the hiking poles.
The next day’s planned walk was to Lake Schluchsee. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schluchsee As we followed the pre-planned trail though, we met a local who thought we might enjoy visiting the local brewery while we were out; so a quick change of route had us visit the Rothaus Brewery https://www.rothaus.de/ not too far from the lake.
Playground at brewery, all construction type – German Engineering starts young
There was no choice on where to walk the next day, it was time to head out for our next hotel in Alpersbach. https://www.outdooractive.com/en/route/hiking-route/schwarzwald/around-alpersbach-rund-um-alpersbach-/13294503/ This was an adventure of a walk, which turned out to be over 15 miles because a critical bridge we needed to cross had been removed. It took a bit of time, plus a bit of local apple tart, but we located a disused alternative and made it to Alpersbach while the sun was still shining.
Bridge? 
We made it. View from hotel room, Alpersbach
From our Alperbach hotel we followed our planned route to and around The Ravenna Gorge. We are talking waterfalls here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravenna_Gorge A wonderful day of hiking that we would recommend to anyone.
The following day, it was on to the third hotel, the Sonne Restaurant and Hotel in Kirchzarten. Andy made a new friend at the top of the meadow as we made our trek across the hills. We had a lovely three days of planned hiking in the local area; to the Wasserfall, https://www.hochschwarzwald.de/Attraktionen/Todtnauer-Wasserfall to visiting St. Peter’s Abbey, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbey_of_Saint_Peter_in_the_Black_Forest and then on to our last stop, Freiburg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freiburg_im_Breisgau After finding the Wasserfall, Andy also found the Hasenhorn Coaster of Todtnau. https://hasenhorn-rodelbahn.de/ Wheee …
Restaurant & Hotel Sonne,
nights 6 – 8
Which way to the Wasserfal? 
There it is 
Next day, off to St. Peter 
Goodbye to St. Peter 
That is the track the coaster takes 
Hiking trail and parcour course in the forest on way to Freiburg 
I did not do the coaster – one of us had to try the local Black Forest Gateau (cake) 
On the trail to Freiburg 
First views of Freiburg, and the Munster, as we come down the mountain
Our last day was not hiking, it was more like wandering. We had directions for a self-guided tour of the town center which served as a basis to find the local landmarks. Major landmark is the Munster. https://www.freiburgermuenster.info/ A gothic cathedral whose initial construction dates back to the 1200’s. It is the towering feature of the town and anchor of the central square.
Goodnight and Goodbye Freiberg.
Did I mention the food on this trip? Our first six nights at the hotels included dinner. This was very helpful as we really did not want to look for food after walking ten or so miles; and as it turned out, the meals were great. The Black Forest is very close to France which has impacted the restaurants in the area. We could not have done better on our own. However, we did find a few meals on our own; we needed to try the local specialties.
Four course dinner on Saturdays 
Five courses on Sundays – with the wine pairing 
Alpersbach; end of the wine-paired dinner on first night 
Spaetzle for lunch 
Local trout 
A pub in middle of the forest. Perfect stop between Kirchzarten and Freiberg 
These are Bragel Wochen. Only Black Forest, only September 
Last meal in Freiburg; meat salad and flamenkeuchen
We did it! We followed almost every hike the company had prepared for us – with just our own detour for the brewery and their detour for the missing bridge keeping us from being 100%. A hundred miles in ten days. We did the hiking, the eating, the drinking, and the marveling at the scenery the travel company had promised. And we would do it again.
To end this post with another quote, this one attributed to J.R.R. Tolkien:
“Little by little, one travels far”
Andy and Linda Benjamin, waterfall hunters, Black Forest Germany, 2020
Wow! That was a great journey. I have been to the Black Forest, but not much hiking. I have the cuckoo clock we bought there. We did go to Frieberg. We did enjoy the food. We used our ski poles for hiking poles. Thanks for sharing your wonderful adventures. Several of your journeys have brought back wonderful memories, as well as getting to share your adventures vicariously.
Thanks Leslie,
Always just a little weird writing to the ‘internet’, so I am happy to hear this is good for you. We very much liked Freiburg, but our free day was on Sunday and almost everything was closed – this surprised us for many reasons. 🙂