Exploring the Alsace: Part Deux (or Zwei!)
As full time travelers, we love month long stays that give us access to a broader region beyond the city where we are staying. Last week I highlighted the Alsace day trips we took from Strasbourg, all within France. You can find that post here! The beauty of the Alsace is the ability to explore other countries as well! In this post, we’ll explore day and weekend trips into Germany and Switzerland, namely Heidelberg, the Black Forest, and Basel!
Heidelberg, Germany
This was our second visit to this charming town on the Rhine. Two years ago we visited with our friends and our oldest son when we were living in London. With our youngest son joining us for a few weeks in Strasbourg we took the opportunity to revisit Heidelberg with a day trip. Unfortunately, we had some time management issues which limited our time in this beautiful city. Typically we end up with too much time in a city on a day trip. That was definitely not the case with Heidelberg!
There are several ways to travel to Heidelberg from Strasbourg. Of course if you have a rental car, that’s a great option. It will take just over an hour and a half by car. There are no direct trains between the two cities, but there are options with a connection. We chose to take a Flixbus for the most direct route. We had experience with Flixbus when we were in Portugal earlier in the year and knew that they were clean and affordable. The bus station in Strasbourg is right next to several tram stops so it is easy and convenient to board. The journey was scheduled for just over two hours and cost $36 per person. Unfortunately we had some traffic delays and the outbound trip from Strasbourg to Heidelberg took almost 45 minutes longer than expected.
Also, its important to mention that on busses and trains that cross from France to Germany they stop at a border patrol on the Germany side and check passports! If you do a day trip from France to Germany, bring your passport! Just because they are both in the EU doesn’t mean that they are unmanaged borders.
Our next issue came with not doing quite enough planning ahead of time. Once we arrived, we realized that the train/bus station is pretty far outside the historic city center. If you know us, you know we’re fast walkers. It still took us about 40 minutes to walk from the bus station to the restaurant area. So with a later start and a longer journey, it was already after 1pm by the time we got into the city center. Lesson learned: research where the station is and how to use city busses in advance! We were hungry and needed a toilet after a longer than expected bus ride and walk! Given that it was a Friday in October, we didn’t expect there to be many tourists. We were wrong! The city center, and all the restaurants were packed with tourists. We had planned to eat lunch at an old historic brewhaus which was of course booked solid, so we had to pivot. Luckily we found a spot at Wirsthaus am Markt and had some good German beer, schnitzel and brats.
Unfortunately it was now almost 3pm and we knew we wouldn’t have time to visit the castle before our bus back to Strasbourg at 5:30. Eric and I had toured the castle on our previous visit, and it is definitely worth a stop. You can take a funicular up to the top which provides incredible views over the Rhine and the city of Heidelberg. Plus it has the largest wine cask we’ve ever seen! We would highly recommend you not be like us, and plan enough time to visit the castle!
But fortune shines on the tenacious, and we pressed on to explore the city. And low and behold…an Oktoberfest celebration was in full force right around the corner! We enjoyed a pint and some sunshine (and of course people watching!)
There was also a wine fest taking place in another city square! While most Americans know Germany for their beer, the region along the Rhine has fabulous wines as well. We didn’t have time to enjoy the wine festival, but it looked charming!
We stopped at the river for a good photo op and walked back to the station for our bus trip home.
We’d love to come back to Heidelberg for more than a day trip. It has a large Christmas market that we’d love to visit. There are a number of boutique hotels and guesthouses in the city center that look charming! A day trip is nice to get a taste, but we’d love to come back for more!
The Black Forest
Our travel in August and September was fast and big city based so we were craving some time in nature! The Black Forest harkens images from Grimm’s fairy tales. Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood are iconic stories of deep dark forests. We always knew this was an area we wanted to explore, and we wanted to take full advantage while we were in neighboring Alsace with a three day trip.
This is an area best served by car. It was a short hour drive from our Airbnb in Illkirch-Graffenstaden to Freiburg im Breisgau, the largest city in the region. From there we drove the climbing twisting roads into the heart of the Black Forest.
Our first stop was a 4 mile hike in the Ravenna Gorge. The parking lot for the hike is right next to the Hotel Hofgut Sternen where you’ll find a variety of restaurants and shops. It is a cute little property with public toilets. From there we accessed the trail from under the enormous train viaduct. There are a lot of different trails that all intersect at various points. As usual, we used a downloaded AllTrails map to help us find our way. The trail took us through the woods, through a cow pasture, through a school, and along an old logging mill. It was a perfect way to be introduced to the beauty of the Black Forest!
After our hike we headed to our hotel in in Saig, about a 20 minute drive east. Saig is a very small village, mostly made up of guest houses. We stayed at Hotel Hochfirst, a family owned guesthouse and restaurant and it was as charming as we’d hoped! The warm cozy restaurant served delicious German specialties. I enjoyed cheese spaetzel (think German mac and cheese), Andrew had a giant weinerschnitzel with cranberry sauce, and Eric enjoyed a schnitzel with a mushroom cream sauce. The service was wonderful. The hotel also had a great breakfast we enjoyed every morning!
The next morning we set off on our long hike up to the top of Feldberg, the tallest peak in the Black Forest. The parking lot for the Feldberg Panoramic hike is at the base of the resort area. This area of the Black Forest is a family recreation hotspot for both winter and summer. There is a ski resort on Feldberg, complete with gondola lifts. In the summer you can hike and mountain bike.
We found that the weather is pretty tricky in October though! It was cold!! From the base of our hike at the parking lot we were at 4200 feet elevation and it was a chilly 36° and dense fog. By the time we reached the top at 4800ft there was ice on the ground! And guess who didn’t bring gloves or stocking caps! While we couldn’t see any of the views, we had a great time hiking through another cow pasture.
This was a hut to hut hike. There were 5 different huts along the way to warm by the fire or grab a bite to eat. We stopped at two and wow were they cozy! Cute, warm and serving hearty food and cold beer, they were everything we had dreamed of when planning this weekend getaway!
About three miles in to our eight mile hike, the sun started to appear! That made all the difference in the world! We’d call this hike a moderate hike. Quite a bit of elevation gain at the beginning and the end, and eight miles long, but nothing technical about it. Again, we followed AllTrails closely, as there are quite a few different trails that intersect.
Also nearby is Lake Titisee and the small village at the northern end. This is a pretty touristy area again, definitely geared to families in the summer. I can imagine it is packed during the warm days of July and August! Lots of trinket shops selling Black Forest goods like ham and cuckoo clocks.
I planned this entire weekend with the help of my new travel planning best friend, ChatGPT! It gave me the hotel and hike recommendations, and I’d say they were spot on. We’d definitely recommend a trip to the Black Forest for any nature lovers! Just the few days that we spent here were fantastic. The forests are beautiful and lush. You can just picture Little Red Riding Hood on her way to grandmas….with the wolf around the corner!
Basel
While in Strasbourg, we added another country to our list, Switzerland! A short 90 minute train ride south takes you to the border city of Basel. Basel is in the north west corner of Switzerland. You could call it a tri-country city, as there are suburbs in both Germany and France! This part of Switzerland speaks German, and be aware that they are not on the Euro. They use the Swiss Franc. As of right now, 1 Euro = 1.08 CHF, so they are pretty close.
Fun story. We knew that we should take our passports with us on the trip since we were crossing a border. Of course we got to the train station in Strasbourg, after a 40 minute journey by foot and tram from our Airbnb, and we realized we had forgotten our passports! So back we went to the house. 90 minutes later we were back to catch a later train. But we discovered that our original train never made it to Basel due to an incident on the track! Happy coincidence!
On this day trip we left mid morning and returned late afternoon. I’ll admit, I was on the lookout for Roger Federer, the only Swiss person I’m familiar with, and he doesn’t even live in this part of the country! But we did visit a Lindt store and stocked up on some chocolates!
Basel is a cute town with a medieval city center and a large cathedral, called a munster. We found the food and culture to be pretty similar to Germany, but the prices were quite a bit higher! Our lunch of brats and schnitzels ran about $45 per person!
Basel gave us a little taste of Switzerland, but next time we visit we definitely want to be in the Alps!
There are loads of day trips you can take from a home base of Strasbourg. Our son added on two more on solo trips: Stuttgart, the home of Porsche and Mercedes-Benz, and Luxembourg, a very small country to the north of Strasbourg. Whether by train, bus or car, staying in Strasbourg gives you amazing opportunities to explore the broader region, and maybe even check some more countries off your list!