Freiburg im Breisgau Part 1

Today we woke up to a bit of snow on the ground! Very exciting. When planning the trip I had originally planned to stay in a small town in the mountains close by, it was on a lake but didn’t seem to have much else. No good hiking trails nearby that I could find, but we could always just walk along the lake. Then I found this town and it looked like much more to do so switched to here, but yesterday when we got here I looked and the first place had had snow! A bit sad for me as I love the snow, but oh well. So I was pretty excited when we woke up to snow! Though it didn’t last that long, it was still nice relaxing and drinking my tea and looking out the window.

Then we bundled up and headed out to explore town. It was -1 with a high of 1 this afternoon and the temp are the other place I thought of staying? -11 with a high of -5!! I was glad we didn’t stay there even though it had snow cause that is too cold!! As it was it was pretty cold here, but we walked into town and spied on the Christmas markets and found a few options for us! We got some hot beverages to warm up (holunder for me and gluhwein for Raymond) and found some vegan schupfnudeln (potato “dumplings” with sauerkraut) for lunch and it was delicious! This is the first time we have found a vegan version as usually the schupfnudeln are made with egg and they add speck to it so it is not even vegetarian. So that was exciting!

After lunch we went to explore more of town and I was so cold!! I had been fine this morning, but a bit of a wind came up and we sat for too long and I was just an ice cube! But we found a farmers market around the cathedral in the middle of town which was really nice. All the produce looked amazing! I don’t know why we can’t have nice farmers markets like this in Berlin! I guess we don’t grow food nearby? I don’t know.

We also found a “healthy treat” place that had little cakes made from cashews, flavoring (berries or chocolate), coconut oil, dates, and maple syrup so we tried a chocolate one. Oh my goodness it was amazing! Not very sweet and I could have gotten a couple of them for snacks if we weren’t going anywhere else after this! One of the best things we have gotten so far (though we did have a lot of amazing things in Milan as well!).

Then we wandered into the cathedral and they had some really gorgeous intricate stained glass windows all over. Some of the most intricate ones we have seen for sure. I was surprised that going into the church actually felt warm! They don’t heat the churches and so normally they are freezing, and it was still cold inside but not as cold as outside! So I warmed up a little bit.

Then more wandering through town and I saw you could walk up the hill just outside of town for some views so we decided to do that. On the way up we found a bench in the sun and had a nice break as the sun was warm enough! That was really nice as I was like I do need a break, but if we sit I am going to get colder…and then the hiking uphill I thought would make me warmer, but it was cold enough I guess that it didn’t really. Didn’t get colder, but didn’t sweat either in all my layers! And the views were really nice.Read more