A Year in Freiburg 2024
Throwback to the Year 2024 in Freiburg
Time flies and so, I still stay in the lovely Freiburg. This year was again full of amazing activities, foodwise, but also by spending time with my friends in Freiburg and the beautiful surroundings while hiking. It's great to see, that it won't get boring at all and I'm still super happy that I got the chance to spend a period of my life in this beautiful city. I'm pretty sure, that even 2024 was another brilliant year full of highlights, 2025 will still bring its own adventures and experiences. I'm really looking forward to it.
This year was a year full of culinary and gastronomic highlights and adventures, since I started to plan the Food Food Food Group meetings to explore more food treasures in Freiburg and the local surroundings. It was not only an occasion to try new food, but especially to get to know new friends in Freiburg too. At the beginning of the year, the meetings were planned quite regularly, but at some point, especially when the holiday season started, it got a bit less, also because we planned many barbecues in the summer season. All the places, we went to, are ranked in an order by myself, so of course it's just a personal opinion based on the food taste, the atmosphere in the restaurant, the price, the service and the surprise factor. So far, my main highlight were the "Café bei Nino" with super delicious Georgian food and a super lovely owner and the "Siam Square Thai Street Food", which serves very amazing Thai curries for a pleasant price. The last restaurant we visited with the group in 2024 was the new Peruvian restaurant "Piqueo", which wasn't cheap, but the food quality and taste was so amazing that I'll definitely come back. The most disappointed experience was the visit of "Bengal", where I really hoped to get great food - it wasn't bad, but also not very special - but the service was horrible, since we had to wait a very long time and at the end, we had to pay, when some people were still eating.
Ranking:
It's not only about going to restaurants to have great food. At the beginning of the year, we enjoyed a fantastic Indian food experience by cooking our own delicacies with our Indian cooking experts Dipti and Vish. We prepared the ingredients and mixed them to true wonders of food - really, it was better than every Indian food I had before. After cooking for a while, we finally started eating and every dish was simply an explosion of tastes in my mouth. I was so glad, that I joined and that Matthias organised this Indian Cooking Night, even if I will always be critical in Indian restaurants from now on.
Together with Antonio, Irene and Weronika, I started my first hike of this year around the Schauinsland. It was not only the typical route of taking the cable car to the mountain station, take a short walk and going back, but more adventurous, since we explored also more of the surroundings of the Schauinsland summit with breathtaking panoramic views and even a little bit of snow. Shortly, we also took a wrong way, but luckily we realised it early enough to not get lost completely. In total, we had a fantastic start into the hiking season.
When the magic of spring awakens in the Seepark, the cherry blossoms are blooming again in the Japanese Garden. It's one of the beautiful times, when Freiburg shows his pink sea of blossoms and the sunlight comes out more and more often. Even if the cherry blossom season doesn't last for a long time, it's always a highlight for me and it always strengthen my feelings to fly back to Asia to explore more of the culture of countries like Japan or South Korea. Someday, I really hope to make it to the cherry blossoms of Kyoto to have a next level experience of this magical time in spring.
Even if Staufen isn't far away from Freiburg, I visited the town for the first time in March of this year. Arrived at the train station, I planned a little hike around the vineyards up to the castle ruin, which probably dates back to the early 12th century, from where I had a marvellous view of Staufen and the surrounding mountains and forests of the Münstertal. After exploring all parts of the castle ruin, I continued hiking, before I also decided to discover the town of Staufen with its beautiful coloured houses and market square. Here, at "Café Decker", I also enjoyed one of the best Black Forest cakes, I had so far.
On Good Friday, I planned to take the train to Konstanz. Since I still felt dizzy after a migraine attack the day before, I stayed in Freiburg and decided to visit Donaueschingen on Easter Sunday instead. The main reason for me to visit the city was the source of the Danube. The Danube is conventionally taken to be formed by the confluence of the two streams Brigach and Breg just east of Donaueschingen, but the source of the Donaubach in the park of the French Baroque Donaueschingen Palace is often referred to as source of the Danube. Close by, I also visited the ancient Greek style Danube Temple, which was built in memory of Kaiser Wilhelm II.'s frequent visits to the Fürstenberg court. After visiting the old town with coloured houses - one of the highlights was the Blue Old Town House with the Musicians' Fountain - I felt really hungry, so that I decided to eat cheese spaetzle and a Black Forest cake at "Café Reiter". I wasn't a big fan of the cake, since it didn't have the layers of the original cake and also tasted too much like alcohol. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the daytrip to Donaueschingen a lot.
Since I spent the Easter weekend in Freiburg, I also gladly joined an organised hike to the Todtnau Waterfall on Easter Monday. We took the bus to the Blackforestline suspension bridge and started to hike in a round loop to reach the waterfall. While hiking downhill in the direction of the waterfall, we enjoyed some fabulous views of the valley, before having a short lunch break at the waterfall. At some point, it also started to snow a little bit and got really cold, so we hurried up to return to the bus station. We all had a lot of fun during the hike and the group dynamics was fantastic.
In the beginning of April, I finally managed to find time to visit Breisach. So far, I just stayed in Breisach once for a short time, but just at the train station to wait for the bus to Colmar. Unfortunately, I also missed the chance to visit the Breisach wine festival, which is supposed to be one of the best wine festivals of the region. When I arrived, I started a little walk up to the Eckartsberg, a small mountain of volcanic origin, in the south of the city. Amidst the vineyards, I had such a breathtaking view of the city with the Romanesque-Gothic St. Stephen's Cathedral, which is the landmark of Breisach, the Rhine river and the beautiful coloured houses in the city centre. Also while walking through the city, I realised, what I missed for so long. Even if Breisach isn't a big city, it was just amazing to explore every alley with many cute cafés and my absolute highlight was the ice cream at the "Eis Pavillon Incontro", followed by a promenade at the banks of the Rhine.
Another fantastic hike was the ascent to the Belchen, the fourth-highest summit of the Black Forest, in the Münstertal area. It was the first time for me, visiting Münstertal, where we took the bus to Wiedener Eck, where our hike started. The hike was adventurous and exhausting, but we were rewarded with great panoramic views of the surrounding Münstertal. When we reached the peak of Belchen, we were really exhausted and took a longer picnic break to refresh and marvelling the panorama of the Black Forest, Vosges, Jura and even the Alps. Afterwards, we continued hiking to get more of these amazing panoramic views of the Belchen triangle, formed by the Alsatian Ballon d'Alsace, the Swiss Belchenflue and the German Belchen. In total, it was a perfect hiking experience not far from Freiburg and definitely a path, I'd like to hike again.
The spring season was full of amazing hikes and activities. One of the activities was a barbecue at the Kybfelsen in the close surroundings of Freiburg. At the beginning, it was planned as a hike and when we realised, we could also have an area to have a barbecue, even more people wanted to join and so, we were almost 30 Expats and one dog on tour. After a long and steep ascent to the Kybfelsen, we had such a brilliant view of Freiburg, the surrounding valleys and even the snowy Alps in the background and we really deserved our lunch break now, so we started the barbecue with delicious food and another great views, before returning to Littenweiler, where we started the hike.
The first of May was a national holiday and so, I was ready for the next spring hike. This time, we started our hike in Elzach, approximately half an hour in the northeast of Freiburg. We decided to hike the Yacher Höhenweg, a path through the beautiful forest with great views of the Kandel and the Feldberg. After a peaceful hiking path with meadows and forests, we followed a more wild and adventurous path along the Haslachsimonswälderbach, which was a steep and rocky downhill path with many small waterfalls. The route itself was very tough for my knees, but the atmosphere around the stream course admidst the unspoiled nature was breathtaking and after we arrived in Simonswald, we really deserved our coffee and cake break. During the bus return, we passed by the "Café Märchengarten", which was on my list for having a visit since we did the hike in the area.
Since I'm living in Freiburg, I always did a spring hike in the Kaiserstuhl area, because I love the atmosphere of the beautiful blooming flowers like red poppies, combined with the brilliant views of the surrounding mountains and vineyard terraces. Usually, I was doing the hikes alone in the last years, also to spend some peaceful time to think about everything, what's going on in my life. This year, I planned the round tour from Oberbergen to the Badberg and the Totenkopf mountains with the Expats hiking group. It was a huge group, since the hike was a moderate one, and we had a lot of fun all together enjoying the vivid and colourful splendours of the flora and fauna of the Kaiserstuhl.
The first weekend after I came back from my long vacations, I visited the exhibition Monets Garden in Freiburg. In three sections, it was possible to immerse myself in the world of Claude Monet and I could experience how the illusions turned into reality. Although the ticket was too expensive for that, what was offered, it was still great to learn something about the life of Monet and how he got inspired for his phenomenal artworks. Especially the imitation of Monets Garden with a walk over the bridge and all the vivid colours was one of the highlights. The third and last part of the museum was then a showroom, where I found myself in the middle of the paintings, immersed in light and sound, and thus became part of the magical scenery for example of Monets gigantic water lily pond.
On my birthday, I planned to do a bicycle tour in the Black Forest and luckily, Ondrej joined me, so I didn't have to go for the ride alone. We took the train to Triberg and here, we started to cycle to the Triberg Waterfalls, one of the highest waterfalls in Germany and a landmark of the Black Forest region, where we spent some time. Afterwrads, we went into the direction of the world's biggest cuckoo clock, before the real bicycle tour started. The first 20 km to Furtwangen were really exhausting, since it was a hot summer day and the road was mainly uphill, so when we arrived in Furtwangen, we deserved a little break and I invited Ondrej to try the award-winning Black Forest cake at "Confiserie Café Conditorei Mayerhöfer". It was definitely one of the best cakes, I had in the Black Forest so far and so, it was a pleasant birthday cake for me. We still spent a couple of minutes in Furtwangen to explore the town, before we continued on a really steep road for another 10 km, but luckily, when we finished the uphill part, we could enjoy the rest of the tour with a downhill road to Simonswald and a more or less flat bicycle path back to Freiburg. In Waldkirch, we had another short break to eat some ice cream and I realised, that the town is actually quite charming and also has a beautiful castle ruin to visit - probably in the next year. After the almost 75 km tour, I was completely tired in the evening, looking forward for the next day, where Solfy and I were celebrating our birthdays together at the barbecue area of the Seepark. Even the rain couldn't stop us for having an amazing time with all of our friends at our Fiesta de Blanco with good food, a lot of fun and the Seepark fireworks at the end of the party, before the after party started around the location of the Seepark Festival. This weekend was simply amazing and definitely a big highlight for the whole year.
The summer was full of many activities and a wonderful wedding of Alex and Mesi in Gengenbach. After my birthday weekend, the real summer started in Freiburg and finally, I was joining the beach volleyball group. I haven't played any kind of volleyball for maybe six or seven years, but I realised, how much fun it made to play. In addition to some sporting activities, drinking wine outside while relaxing was also a must at the Dreisam or at the wine tasting event in Seepark. Together with Meliha, we spent her birthday together, first while having a cake at "Kolben Kaffee" and afterwards while visiting the Schlossberg Festival with live music, dancing and a lot of fun. There was also a Streetfood Festival at the Messe in Freiburg, where I tried some Sri Lankan food and an alcohol free piña colada, served in a pineapple. Unfortunately, the pineapple curry was already out, so I decided together with Meliha, that we'll meet to cook it by ourselves once. Another highlight in August was the rising of the super moon. It was a huge spectacle with many visitors around the Schlossberg.
Beside all these wonderful experiences, another highlight stands out: the Wedding of Alex and Mesi in Gengenbach. Together with my old colleagues/friends from the research group in Göttingen, we booked an AirBnB in Gengenbach to first celebrate Seppi's birthday. The Saturday, we went to the wedding location to celebrate the lovely Hungarian-German wedding of Alex and Mesi.
In the middle of September, my friend Verena visited me in Freiburg. She arrived in the early Saturday morning and after a short breakfast, we decided to take the cable car to the Schauinsland. Even if it was really foggy and we couldn't see the beautiful panoramic views, it was still amazing, especially with the cable car ride through the fog and our Kaiserschmarrn lunch in the restaurant of the Schauinsland Bergstation. For the good views, we went up to the Schlossberg Tower, since we missed this part last year, after it was super icy and slippery. It was definitely worth it, since we had much more luck with the weather, when we arrived back in Freiburg. Later on, we went to the "Indian Curryhouse" for our dinner, since I wanted to go there the last time and it was fully booked. With a full stomach, we went through the neighbouring bars to join the Jazzfestival and listend to some fancy Jazz music, before we returned home not too late to be not too tired for the next day.
For the Sunday, I rented a car, so we could visit the beautiful French city of Colmar with its La Petite Venise and the cute half-timbered and colourful decorated houses. We made the full food programme with croissants and tarte flambée in Colmar and an ice cream break on the way back at the "Eis Pavillion" in Breisach. It was definitely a great idea to enjoy the end of summer sunshine in Colmar, before heading back to Freiburg, where we decided to watch the sunset from the Seepark while drinking a glass of "Federweisser". Unfortunately, the weekend was over too fast again and so, I brought Verena back to the train station, where she took the night train back to Nienburg.
The first hike of the autumn season was a hike in the beautiful Münstertal region. By train and bus, we went from Freiburg to the little vllage of Spielweg, from where our hike started. It was only my second time, hiking in the region - after the Belchen hike in April - and the surrounding with the impressive panoramic views was simply amazing. The hike itself was quite moderate, so that we had even more time to enjoy the beautiful landscapes with the wide mountain range, also while doing our lunch break. When we arrived back in Münstertal, we realised, that we missed the train by a few minutes, so we decided to take a coffee and cake break, before we went to Staufen to see the Medieval Festival in the city centre. We had the chance to listen to some medieval folk music, drink a cherry and a met beer and we could see a parade, before we returned back to Freiburg. All in all, it was a fantastic day in the nature, combined with a local festival experience.
Since summer ended and the evenings got colder again, it was time to plan another Cooking Night at Matthias' place in Gundelfingen. After the amazing Indian Cooking Night at the beginning of the year, it was the second time for me to join and this time, we started to prepare a typical dish for the beginning of the autumn season - onion cake with Federweisser as drink. It was not the most challenging recipe - maybe the most challenging part was not to cry while cutting the onions - but nevertheless, we had a lot of fun, cooking and eating the onion cakes together. Later on, we also continued drinking some pomegranate wine, which was also really tasty and we agreed to make anothe Cooking Night at the beginning of the new year.
Hiking to Schauinsland is always an adventure. Usually, I always went to the Talstation and then took the cable car, followed by exploring the area by a little walk or hike. This time, I organised a hike from the Talstation to the summit to get a new experience. At the beginning, I was a little bit afraid, since it was shown to be a tough hike, but the slope was more or less moderate and we all managed to arrive at the restaurant of the Bergstation without any problems. After a refreshment break and some panoramic views - luckily, it wasn't cloudy or foggy this time - we started our downhill track with some more amazing places like the "Stäpfelefelsen", a little rock, where it was possible to climb up. For me, it was a perfect Sunday hike with a great and amazing hiking group.
The autumn and pre-winter season were characterised by many activities with my friends, where in addition to socializing, good food was always the focus. Together with Meliha, I tried out many delicious recipes. One of our highlights was the pineapple curry, which we couldn't get at the Street Food Festival. The evening, we cooked the pineapple curry, was also the start of our jounrey together. Since then, we have spent a lot of time together - either watching a beautiful sunset in St. Ulrich or eating delicious kofta, Taiwanese food or drinking Turkish coffee. We also made it to the breakfast buffet at the Schauinsland Bergstation with a following walk in the magical colourful autumn atmosphere. We also followed the trend of eating Dubai chocolate, while we were baking cookies for our Christmas party with our friends, where we also prepared our own mulled wine and winterly apple punch. Together with the Hyde Park group, I also had a nother Christmas party with a lot of fun and delicious food. To round off a wonderful year, a Christmas badminton torunament was held again, where the focus was of course on having fun with delicious cookies and mulled wine.
In December, I was exploring the Christmas Paradise in Strasbourg together with Meliha, Cansu and Özde. Before, I've only been to Strasbourg and the Alsace region in summer and autumn and so I was very impressed by all the marvellous decorations all around the city centre. While the summer atmosphere with all the flowers disappeared, a charming and romantic Christmas feeling was created by numerous decorations like teddy bears, Santas, stars or greenery at the windows of the half-timbered houses. Everything was spectacular, during the daytime, but especially, when the light shows began in the afternoon. I clearly understood, why Strasbourg was declared to be the Capital of Christmas! Also, Strasbourg's Christmas market's were held as early as the 12th century and were the first in France. But since the food was very expensive, we skipped eating there, also because we didn't find very special delicacies like Bûche de Noel, what I really wanted to try. All in all, we had a wonderful Sunday in Strasbourg in the pre-Christmas season.
The Christmas time was full of many magical and romantic adventures and moments like the visit of the Christmas Market of Baden-Baden and the old town with the colourful Christmas decorations around the "Gasthaus Löwenbräu". We immersed ourselves in a Christmas wonderland, enjoying the cozy atmosphere and trying Baumstriezel spit cake and a cup of Feuerzangenbowle at the "Christkindelsmarkt". We also walked by the Roman-Irish Friedrichsbad, a famous Neo-Renaissance spa, we want to visit and enjoy in 2025. At the end of the day, we took a train to Gengenbach, a small city in the Black Forest region, which is famous for the biggest advent calendar, showing beautiful art pictures at the 24 windows of the old town house. Every day at 6 pm, there was a little procedure before they opened a new window. It was a perfect winter day to get more and more into the Christmas mood and celebrate the end of the year.
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