Sometimes a place makes the itinerary because it’s somewhere you want to visit. Other times, it makes the itinerary because it’s practical.
Freiburg was supposed to be the second one. It ended up being both.
As I’ve mentioned before, my main job in planning this trip to Germany and Austria was to get us to the places my wife Sharon wanted to see. It was “her trip” since it was planned to celebrate her recent “significant milestone” birthday.
For this part of the trip, that meant the Black Forest region. The problem was that the places we wanted to visit weren’t all clustered together. Some were towns, some were scenic areas, and some were easier to reach by car than by piecing together trains and buses.
That’s why we rented a car for this part of the trip. It wasn’t because I was eager to drive in Germany. It was because, for what we wanted to do, having a car made the most sense.
Once that decision was made, I started looking for a city that would work as a base. I needed somewhere with a good selection of hotels, access to major roads, and a location that would keep most of our planned day trips from becoming too long a drive.
Freiburg checked those boxes.
From there, many of the places we wanted to visit were about an hour away, give or take. On paper, that made Freiburg a sensible choice.
What I didn’t expect was that Freiburg would turn out to be one of the places we actually wanted to spend time.
Freiburg Wasn’t Just A Place To Sleep
I had originally thought of Freiburg as a base.
That’s not meant as an insult. A good base city can make or break a trip, especially when you’re driving. You want somewhere that makes the logistics easier, not harder. Freiburg did that.
But almost as soon as we arrived, it was obvious that the city had more going on than I had expected.
That was a very different feeling from where we had just been.
This Wasn’t Just More Of The Same After Rothenburg
Before Freiburg, we had spent several days in Rothenburg ob der Tauber.
Rothenburg is one of the most medieval-looking towns we’ve ever visited. It has walls, towers, narrow lanes, old buildings and the kind of setting that looks almost too perfect. It’s easy to understand why people go there.
Rothenburg felt preserved. Freiburg feels lived-in.
It has the historic old town, the church, the market square and the old buildings, but it also had the energy of a larger city. The shopping streets were active. The dining options were varied. The university gave the area a younger feel. There was history everywhere, but the city didn’t feel frozen in time.
That’s what made it stand out.
The Minster And The Market Give Freiburg Its Center
The focal point of Freiburg’s old town is Freiburg Minster, the large Gothic church that dominates the city center.
Construction began around 1200, and it remains the landmark around which everything seems to revolve. The official Freiburg tourism site notes that it is one of the few major Gothic churches that was begun and completed during the Middle Ages.
Around the church is the Münstermarkt, Freiburg’s cathedral market. The market fills the square around the Minster, making the center of town feel active in a way that goes beyond sightseeing.
There were stalls selling food, flowers and local products, with people actually shopping, eating and meeting up. It didn’t feel like something set up only for visitors.
We hadn’t originally planned to spend a morning in Freiburg. The schedule was supposed to be about using the city as a base and heading out to see other places.
But after seeing the old town when we arrived, we changed the plan.
The next morning, we walked around the market, had breakfast at one of the cafés and went inside the Minster. It wasn’t a major planned sightseeing day. It was one of those mornings that happened because the city made a better case for itself than my itinerary had.
Freiburg Has Big-City Energy In A Historic Center
Another reason Freiburg worked so well for us is that it didn’t feel one-dimensional.
Yes, the old town is historic. Yes, the Minster and market are the obvious visual anchors. But Freiburg is also a university city, and that gives the center a different kind of energy.
You can feel that when walking around. There are students, restaurants, shops and plenty of people out in the evening. It isn’t just a place to look at old buildings during the day and then leave.
That mattered because we were returning there after day trips. A base city needs to be useful at night, too. Freiburg was.
Final Thoughts
Freiburg worked exactly as I hoped it would, as a base for the Black Forest.
It had hotels, road access and a location that put us about an hour from many of the places we wanted to visit. From a planning standpoint, it made sense.
But that undersells it.
Freiburg wasn’t just where we slept between day trips. It became part of the trip itself. The old town, the market, the Minster, the restaurants and the university-city energy all made it a place we were glad we had time to experience.
In a way, Freiburg was a happy accident. I picked it because it made the most sense on a map, but of all the places I could have chosen as our Black Forest base, I’m glad this is where we ended up.
By the time we left, I wasn’t just glad Freiburg had been convenient. I was glad we hadn’t treated it as only that.
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