Schwarzwaldhochstraße

A mouthful but a very nice drive from Baden-Baden to Freudenstadt along the Black Forest Highway (Schwarzwaldhochstraße) through an idyllic combination of pines, meadows, valleys and peaks.

This highway is the oldest German holiday highway and was completed in 1934 and gives views of the plateaus of the northern Black Forest.

Freudenstadt, despite a commentary we read saying that it “is not a place to make for deliberately, but you are likely to end up there if you are driving the Schwarzwaldhochstraße“, we found reasonably attractive.

Its marktplatz or town square is the largest in Germany but today the size of it was hidden by the many stalls that had been set for the African festival

On the return drive we stopped off at the very touristy Mummelsee which is a lake situated in a glacial trough

Its name is said to come from the legendary mummels or water-sprites and dotted along the 1.5km walkway around the lake are carved figures depicting the various myths of the mummels

I said touristy & it was - hundreds of cars parked along the street, motorcycles for Africa, a couple of souvenir shops and hundreds of people (including us) all stopped at a site situated 1048m above sea level and surrounded by the Forest.

The number of motorcycles out on the road today was very noticeable and while it is only a guesstimate it seemed like there was 1 bike for every 5 cars on the highway - it is superb weather for biking it has to be said.

Kms driven to date 673

Kms walked to date 101.5