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Freiburg 3.0

I’ve been dying again, so y’all have to forgive me for not blogging much recently (incidentally, halfway up some mountain in Freiburg, Andy managed to convince me that we’re now going to use ‘y’all’ for the plural of ‘you group of people’ in English, if only because it’s slightly classier than ‘yooouuussee’)

Anyway, back to Freiburg, which is very lovely, but also rather small. So on the third day we decided to escape to the countryside.

We were headed to Titisee, but on the train overheard a fairly loud American woman telling her friends about some style of county fair near Baerental. We sneakily followed them off the train, onto another bus, and down the road:

We peered at all the wares- skins and furs and honey and liquors and smoked pieces of animal, and I took up with the most amazingly invigorating (SOUR!!) plum juice that has ever passed my lips. Because the fair itself was quite small, we also roamed a bit on the moors..

It was quaint- the sort of thing you’d expect to see in one of those English detective show that your mother watches- but nice. Ever since the time of school fetes I’ve been a bit of sucker for anything that’s outside with voices and food and children and music. This one had these:

When we got to Titisee itself, we discovered that there wasn’t a great deal to see. The lake itself is lovely, but unless you rock up when the sun is shining (we did not), there’s not much to the town itself, except hundreds of carbon copy souvenir shops selling black forest cakes, hats, Kirschwasser, and- of course- the world famous black forest Cuckoo Clocks.

Can you guess how much the one in the centre costs?

If you guessed anything less than Four thousand euros, you are clearly a philistine who doesn’t recognise a masterpiece (that’s what’s written on the little orange sign) when you see one.

There were paddleboats, and although there weren’t any shaped like swans (schade), we committed for a red-is-for-speedy little number, and zoomed around the lake, chasing tourist ferries and molesting water buoys.

I insisted on driving: everyone knows that all boats are women and respond better to a like-handed touch right?

It started to get drizzly, which seemed like a good time to take refuge with a book and some cake. This creation was amazing- it paired the tartness of the Johannisberries (I think red currant?) with a fluffy meringue topping, and a nutty base. So very very good.

We hung around until 8pm to check out the crazy water-lights-music show. Pretty, especially the part with the more techno-robot music and the lasers.

But ABSOLUTELY freezing. We bought a blanket because it was already a bit chilly, but then it also started to rain, and we rapidly became wet and miserable, and started to hang out for the whole thing to come to an end.

Of course the next day was beautifully sunny again, so we spent the morning before Andy’s flight just sort of drifting about town.

Several of the houses contain little plaques nestled in the paving out the front- memoirs to the Jewish people who used to live there and were persecuted and murdered in the Nazi times.

After Andy got on the bus back to the airport, I used my perfect German to ask the kind lady at the tourist information where Freiburg was hiding all of its op shops….. and spent a happy afternoon shopping, and then a slightly more stressful evening trying to work out how to get all my stuff back in my luggage.

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