A Day Loop From Bellach Into the Black Forest

We took the train in a loop out of Bellach, through Solothurn and Olten and Basel before crossing into Germany for Freiburg, then further into the Black Forest toward Neustadt and Hinterzarten, the same trains eventually carrying us back.

Into the Black Forest

Freiburg's old town is mostly car free, narrow enough that walking felt like the only sensible way to see any of it. A shop called Schwarzwaldmarie hung a sign reading Gugugsuhren over its door, cuckoo clocks stacked in the window behind a Christmas wreath and a velvet clad Santa figure standing guard, the whole shop looking like the Black Forest's idea of itself distilled into one storefront. Further along, a laminated menu pinned outside a restaurant called Mahatma Gandhi caught me off guard in the middle of a German street corner, samosas and chicken tikka masala priced in euros, a small unexpected piece of home nailed to a wall in Freiburg.

Free scenery stood in for anything a ticket could have bought.

Neustadt and Hinterzarten came next, smaller towns under the shadow of the Feldberg, the highest point in the Black Forest. A traditional shingle fronted hotel with dark wood balconies and flower boxes still hanging on despite the season anchored one town center, and a wooden playground sat half covered in old, graying snow in the other, kids climbing a tower shaped like a tiny watchtower while the light started to go soft and low behind the trees.

We rode the loop back to Bellach as the afternoon gave out, a full day spent almost entirely on regional trains and forest towns that had clearly been getting by just fine without needing anyone to have heard of them.