Schwarzwald Sampler -- Car-camping in the Black Forest of Germany

My husband and I realized that we hardly ever went to destinations close to where we live and that is how we decided to go to the Schwarzwald for our 2 week holiday.

Schwarzwald is German for Black Forest (black = schwarz, forest = wald) -- a magical place where forests are dark and deep. One can imagine this landscape as home to Grimm's wicked fairytales of little red-hooded skipping girls lured by big grey wolves with glinting eyes.

The plan was to see the Schwarzwald from the North to South, from Baden-Baden to Freudenstadt via the Hochschwarzwaldstrasse (High Black Forest Avenue), stop by Freiburg, then work our way back up through the wine region of Germany including Kaiserstuhl, the Alsace region of France and Straßbourg, then back home.  We also decided to forgo booking any hotels, and take our chances with campsites, and go with the flow.  To be able to do that,  we would go car camping! Car-camping in Europe means that you stop at paid campsites. It is generally not possible to camp in the wild as in some other countries.

We loaded up our car with our hardly used 3-man tent, camp stove, food, and enough clothes for 2 weeks so as not to have to do laundry.  I borrowed all possible travel books with advice for hikes, bike tours and even city tours.  We planned to do small hikes, as well as bring our mountain bikes to get around.  We were able to do all of that, but did not count on the weather being as rainy as it was. We had rain for maybe 12 out of the 14 days on the road, but that did not stop us. :-)

First stop: Baden-Baden

I was in charge of making all the plans for where to go, and I happily pointed our gps to what I thought was a campsite in Baden-Baden.  Oops!  Although it was close to the center of Baden-Baden which was why I had chosen it, it turned out to be an RV or Wohnwagen place, where one pays to park one of those big camping caravans.  

I immediately realized my plan was not too efficient, and thought, hmmm, there must be an app for that (i.e. to find German campsites). And there was! We decided at that instant to buy and download an app that would tell us where the campsites were, and went with the ADAC Camping/Stellplatze 2014 Android app since we were ADAC members and it looked good.  I had thought twice about paying for it, since it cost about 8€, but in the end it was well worth it.  Great buy! It saved us quite some time and effort.  This app can tell you the ADAC certified campsites and caravan parking places in Germany and in most European countries, like France, Switzerland, Italy.  (ADAC is Germany's top car club.)  It also has ratings for the places to make your decision easier.  You can also get a camping card to get discounts on your stay -- although I think we only remembered to show it twice to claim our 10% discount.  Another important app was Osmand which provided offline maps as well as navigation. They really fixed the navigation options for this app with voice directions!  You will need the Baden-Württemberg map for this area.

Our first stop was a 4.5 star rated campsite close to Baden-Baden -- the Freizeitcenter Oberreihn. My first German campsite! It was almost at capacity, but we were able to get a place to camp for about 40€ per night for a car, 2 people and a tent -- not very cheap, but the place was huge, with 2 small lakes and quite nice facilities.  We even paid for electricity at our campsite although we only used it to charge our phones and tablet. Baden-Baden was 20 kms away so we just decided to take it easy for the first day and get settled in the campsite.  We biked around and even took a dip in the lake.  We realized that it would have been tons more comfortable to eat had we brought along camp chairs and a camp table (which everyone else around had). We had to bring out a picnic blanket and ate our dinner in front of our tent. That night, there was a beautiful full moon to go with our dinner!  It was great to be outdoors.

Next day, we had fresh brötchen or bread rolls from a shop in the campsite. Yes, some campsites have these nice amenities, sometimes even a restaurant.

First off, we went for a short hike.  We parked at an extremely expensive spot in the city center of Baden-Baden, and walked to the trailhead.  We found that it would have been possible to park at this area for free.  The hike started at the Caracalla Baths, went up through a hill to a great view of the city, and up to the ruins of the Altes Schloss (or Old Castle).  We had lunch at a restaurant there, I had Wurstsalat (sausage salad), a German classic, washed down by their local beer. The castle was truly fascinating and had great views! We hiked around a bit more to try to follow the Panoramaweg, but we also wanted to go to the baths so after a bit we went back down.

Baden-Baden is of course famous for its thermal baths, and we had to try that.  They have two baths, one the traditional bath, the Freidrichsbad, and the other a more modern affair called the Caracalla Therme.  First off, you have to know that German saunas/baths are usually mixed -- meaning males/females in the buff are together in one sauna.  So was it in the Friedrichsbad.  It was supposed to be a traditional Roman bath with several stations. First, a warm air room, then a bath, another Roman style room and so on. Then, we opted to get a body scrub with a brush -- I chose a hard brush, but I recommend the soft one as it was honestly too hard. Then so on for several baths. Interesting experience.

We were not able to go to some other places since we decided Baden-Baden is pretty close so we can just go there anytime, and next day, left for our next destination. (to be continued)