We'd like to spend a couple of days in the Black Forest area for day-long hiking. We won't have a car, so are looking for a town with trails that are easy to reach by public transportation. Rick mentions Staufen, but I'm wondering if you have suggestions for an off-the-beaten-track (minimally touristy) town that we could use as our base for a couple of nice hikes.
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Lakewood, Colorado
19092 posts
I think any town in the Black Forest will be somewhat touristy. I found that towns in the southern BF were particularly so. One of my favorite BF towns is Bad Herrenalb, in the northern BF. I've spent over two weeks there in four trips. It's easily reached by streetcar from Karlsruhe. It's in a deep valley with hiking trails all over the surrounding hills.
Here is Bad Herrenalb's hiking brochure showing a number of hikes around town, but it's in German.
It also has a very nice, traditional (i.e., clothing free) spa.
You could take a bus out of Baden-Baden and hike up the Merkurberg.