We arrived in Freiberg on Friday night after about a 3.5 hour train ride, and luckily the hostel had given fairly good directions, so we hopped on a tram and only had to walk a bit to get to the hostel. We hadn't really known what to expect, we had just planned to come to the Black Forest area of Germany because it is supposedly really nice, and because we wanted to visit some of the spas in Baden-Baden. We had heard that Freiberg was a good place to stay because its located in the middle of the forest, so we figured it was a pretty small town, but we were wrong! Freiberg was actually fairly large, and there was a ton of people out on the streets as we went through, even for a Friday night!
Our hostel was really nice - no bunk beds, which was amazing, and a lot more spacious! Since we finally had 3 nights in one location we could completely unpack our stuff and settle in, and we actually spent a lot of time in the hostel on Saturday. We didn't leave until around lunch, after which we climbed up this mountain/hill type thing that goes into the Black Forest, with nice walking trails and such, and we hiked for quite a while - there were great views from the top of the city and the surrounding forest!
When we went back out for dinner that night, there was a ton of people out again, and all the restaurants and bars had tables and stands out on the street, it was craziness! Luckily we found somewhere to sit and had really good dinner and cheap beer. We walked around the town that night and had ice cream and then there were tons of people out in the main square by the church... and a stage, and a crane, and a screen - so we had no idea what was going on! Then there were people on the stage, and we think a cardinal was there? But eventually Kasey used her awesome German skills to put some bits and pieces together and determined that it was a festival they have every year where they melt down and old bell from the minster and reform it. Crazy! So we got to watch them pour the molten metal, it was super cool, and that explained all the craziness in the streets we had seen that weekend. So a surprise festival, thats always good!
"spaghetti eis"The next day was Sunday, and we had plans to go to Baden-Baden to see the roman bath ruins and go to the spa, which is so much cheaper than the US! We were there for like 3 hours in saunas and pools and had massages and lotion and got wrapped in blankets and put in a 'sleeping room' - it was good stuff. When we got back to Freiberg that evening I was able to call my family on Skype, an internet phone program, since our hostel had headsets, so that was great since I hadn't talked to them in 2 weeks! Then we went back out on to the beer gartens to try to find a place to watch the Eurocup finals, exciting since Germany was playing! There were people everywhere... it was convenient that the festival and the game were on the same weekend, they just left all the picnic tables out on the streets and we ended up going back to the same place as the night before and watching the game. Unfortunately, Germany lost in a rather boring game, but it was still fun!
Monday was our last day in Germany and we needed to get to Switzerland by that evening. Kasey and I had planned to just go to Bern in the morning, maybe stopping in Basel, but Sunday we had seen a sign for Europa Park, and decided we'd figure out how to go there instead! Europa Park is basically like Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, where each country has its own section, so that was fun, and there were tons of roller coasters and ride, and popcorn, which we were so happy to see! It ended up being a really fun day, and it was nice to do something totally different. I think thats the secret to traveling for a long time and not getting bored - don't do the same thing every day!
with EuroMaus!So all in all, our whole German experience was great - much cheaper than the past few weeks, which ultimately resulted in us eating and drinking more, and therefore costing us about the same per day, but whatever!
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