Freiburg (Friday 23rd September 2017)

Today our main objective was to get the tyre on the car replaced. After breakfast we headed off down the mountain to Freiburg, a large university town at the bottom of the western slopes of the Hochschwarzwald (High Black Forest) arriving at the Renault dealer at about 09:45. I explained the problem to them and they were very helpful. They didn’t have one of the tyres I needed in stock so made some inquires at local tyre retailers and at their other outlets. I chose this dealer because he’d won the Renault Dealer of the Year a couple of times and had four showrooms in the southern Germany region.

Luckily, their showroom in Kehl had one tyre in stock. After all my paperwork was verified by Renault Eurodrive and their insurance company we were off to Kehl – 80kms and 55 minutes away. It was 10:30am so we should make it time and get the job done before the dealer’s service centre closed at 12:00pm. This was a reasonable assumption. Trouble is, I could only drive at 80kph because of the dodgy emergency tyre and, of course, we struck roadworks on the autobahn. Just as we were about to come to a complete standstill we reprogrammed GPS-girl to forget about motorways. She directed us away from the motorway, along secondary roads and through towns and villages. The traffic and speed restrictions we encountered as a result added 40 minutes to the trip. We were shot. ETA at the garage, 12:10pm. :( .

The dealer was on the near side of town, a small break, and we rolled in at 12:09. The mechanics were literally driving out as we were driving in! A chap emerged from the showroom and without a word, to our surprise, went to the boot and retrieved the wheel! The garage had been advised of our imminent arrival so I can only guess he was patiently waiting for us. I reckon he was the Service Manager. About 15 minutes later he motioned me into a service bay, jacked the car up and replaced the wheel. By 12:30pm we were on our way again. I will be eternally grateful to all the people with whom I engaged including the girls at the call centre where I made the initial call, the girls at the insurance company, Peter and Anika at Autohaus Tabor, Freiburg and the unknown Service Manager who stayed behind to wait for us to arrive and then do the dirty work himself.

In need of a coffee we drove away in search of cafe. However, none were to be readily found so after some deliberation about whether to visit Strasbourg or not, as it was just 6kms away from Kehl, we turned south onto the autobahn heading for home. Leaving St. Margen with no idea whether or not we’d even get the tyre fixed today and then the race against time to get to the Kehl dealer it had been a pretty stressful morning. Along the way we pulled into a pertol station/truck stop, filled the car and filled ourselves. While there we decided to head to Feldberg, a bit East of Freiburg.

 

The road took us through the middle of Freiburg past the Altstadt (old town). It looked very inviting so we found a park and followed our noses into town, not knowing what to expect. The first thing we found was the Hotel Baron where a long overdue coffee was had. There were quite a few people about walking up and down the narrow Oberlinden, dodging the long trams as they went. The trams look very much like the modern Melbourne trams, only much longer. We took off in the direction of the growing crowds. Kerry found a wool craft shop where the lovely ladies there helped her with a purchase.

 

 

 

 Further we went along the cobble-stoned streets until we came across a big square with the fabulous Gothic Freiburger Munster as its imposing centrepiece. The church has a stunning entrance with some wonderful stone work. The inside is dark and cavernous, being lit mostly by the light coming through the stained glass windows. We lit a candle for our respective mothers, stopped for 10 minutes in a pew to soak up the atmosphere and then headed back out to Munsterplatz. The music of what appeared to be a Central American band, made up of half a dozen middle-aged men, attracted our attention so we sat down out side a cafe, ordered ice-creams and relaxed for 30 minutes. The weather was a beautiful, warm and sunny 22C.

As you can see in the picture above almost all of the streets of the Altstadt have these curious little open channels with running water in them, the water coming from the town's nearby stream. They disappear for a short distance then pop up again nearby or in an adjacent lane. I saw the same thing in Villingen-Schwenningen. They are known as Bächle, which translates to “stream”. They’ve been in existence since the 12^th century, used as a way to irrigate crops, get water to houses and fight fires. They’re now a much loved part of Freiburg and other Black Forest towns. Legend has it hat if you step in a Bächle you’ll marry someone from the town.

After the ice-cream was finished we wandered off aimlessly until we stumbled across a Pandora store. Now we had an aim, Well, Kerry did anyway! After the purchase of a replicas of he Bandenberg Gate we head back towards the car. Along the way we enjoyed the talents of a most original “busker”. As has been to way for a long time enterprising young people at traffic lights often offer to clean windscreen for a dollar or two. Not this chap. When the lights turned red he ran out to the middle of the road and started to juggle. For pure originality he earned a couple of Euros from the Smiths! 

 

We collected the car and started to drive back up the mountain. The sun was setting and the light on the trees on the hill-sides created a wonderful contrast of light and shade. Tomorrow we’ll head out specifically to try to capture the beauty of the Hochschwarzwald.