Tuesday, September 28, 2010

First days in Freiburg

It's been awhile since I wrote my travel blog. In fact the last thing I wrote about was my last days in Sydney. Since then I have been working in Norway and saving money for my next travels. Now the time has come to post again and this time I am in Freiburg. I have also changed my blog address reflecting that I am no longer in Australia. I am now visiting places all around the world and Germany is a natural place to travel to since my girlfriend lives there! This means I have a free guide to show me around :P

Freiburg is a town far southwest in Germany next to the Swiss border and the town of Basel. It is also close to the French border. The city is known for its sunny weather because of the location so far south. The region is famous for wine, skiing and of course the "Schwarzwald" known as the Black Forrest in English. Freiburg is an old town with a lot of history and this is clearly seen when walking around the city. Annina showed me around the city center on my second day. The streets and houses all look old, but with charm. There are still two big gates standing from the time there was a wall around the city, and in the middle of the city is the Münster, a gigantic church from 15th century. There are side alleys and cobblestone roads everywhere. It's easy to see that this town has been around for a long time.

Annina met me at the Frankfurt airport. It was so nice to see her again after nearly 2 months apart. After a long hug and some kisses we drove back towards Freiburg on the Autobahn. The Autobahn is famous because on parts of it there is no speed limit. We where going around 150km/h and still cars where driving past us at much higher speeds. When we arrived in Freiburg we were both hungry and since I arrived exactly on our 9 month anniversary we decided to go out and eat. Annina knew about a great little family run pizza place and we went there and eat. The food was really good and the atmosphere likewise.
Like I mentioned, the day after I arrived Annina took me for a walk through the city. She showed me all the different places worth seeing, including her old school, the university, theater and cinema. Sadly it started to rain in the afternoon so we had to hurry back home before we got to wet. In the evening Annina's mom came home and we played a board game called Carcassonne. It is a surprisingly well thought out game and a great deal of fun!

The next morning after Annina was done working (she works 1.5 hours in a kindergarten every morning) we went back into the city center of Freiburg (She lives only 10 minutes outside) to go shopping. I had promised Annina to take a eye test to see if I need glasses. This is something I have realized that I maybe need for a long time now, but never done anything about. It turned out I do need glasses especially for driving or when I am looking at stuff in the distance, so I ended up buying a pair. We also went shopping for a wireless router for Annina and soccer tickets for the local Freiburg SC against Köln match in Bundesliga.

In the afternoon we walked up the Schlossberg, a tall hill in Freiburg. Here they grow wine and on the very top of the hill is a tower built of metal and four gigantic tree trunks. We climbed this tower and had a fantastic view of Freiburg and the surrounding area. After taking photos and enjoying the view we sat down at the local beergarden which also had amazing views. We could even see Annina's apartment from the bench where we were sitting. Freiburg is such a beautiful city with great atmosphere and full of history.


1 comment:

  1. Great to see that you are out seeing the world. I spent some time in a cabin in the Schwartzwald when I was 10. There was a gypsy camp nearby and my cousin liked to frighten me with tales of how the gypsys steal children.

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