We are staying two nights (about 48 hours) in Freiburg during the upcoming wine festival in early July. We won't have a car. I would love explore a nearby town that has hiking paths. Any suggestions? A hike that is 2 to 4 miles would be ideal.
Thanks!
Julie
There are many small hikes that start from Freiburg itself--they are not at all wild, but have nice views of the city. The easiest thing to do is just to go up in the hills by Schwabentor--if you make a loop from there, you can finish at the beer garden overlooking the city. But also to the south of the city, like the hiking around Schönberg near the Vauban neighbourhood, can be nice.
For a bit more nature/further from the city, there are nice hikes around Schluchsee in the Black Forest. If you take the train to the Aha station, you can walk up in the hills on the north side of the lake towards the Schluchsee train station. I think that is about 5-6km, so might fit your length requirement well. The scenery is not terribly dramatic, but is quite pretty. This is a quick train ride--maybe 30 minutes from Freiburg main train station?
Another option would be the area around Kaiserstuhl--this is less forest and more wine mountains and fields.
If any of these sound interesting, let me know and I can give you more precise information.
Thank you so much for these suggestions! The hike out of town with the beer garden sounds perfect!
This is the beer garden. It is quite nice (I studied in Freiburg and this was a place that students, workers, and tourists all go to).
As for the exact hiking routes: There is no real way to go wrong here. There is a big network of paths on the hill that this beer garden is on--the beer garden is located somewhere near the lower third or so of the hill, and has great views of the city.
On top of the hill, there is a tower on the top that you can climb, but the views are not that much better from the tower than from elsewhere. But, and more interestingly, there are a handful of old fortification/military ruins (like, 17./18. century) on the hilltop--this is the Website of an association that cares for them--they have a few hiking routes shown on their map. The website is all in German, so I am not sure how helpful that is to you, but you can use GoogleTranslate. I think even the short hike they show is a bit longer than you want, but I am not positive about that. The nice thing about this is that it is so close to the city (and to the beer garden!) that you can always just turn around and go back down when you are done. You cannot really get lost up there or so.
Thanks so much! We are definitely going to check this out.
Enjoy your time on Freiburg. It is a lovely city, and the summer is usually fantastic.
