Zipping down the Dreisam on a Thursday afternoon*

Elias returned from his class adventure in Bonndorf having grown six inches and become independent beyond his years. Good food, good snow, good friends, good fun. He lost his flashlight, but found it again. He explained the many meanings of the English word "lift" to inquiring classmates. He didn't change his clothes once. Oh, "and the bus driver was really nice! Lots of people drank hot chocolate for breakfast--I had some too--and the bus driver had bags for everyone in case anyone needed to throw up. It was a really curvy road."

After lunch and a bath for the reeking child, we decided to walk to a park situated in the southeast part of Freiburg, along the Dreisam River, to try out a zip line I had seen on a jog. The park is about two miles from our apartment, and I had the brilliant idea of trying to cut over the Schlossberg to save us some time. Turns out the south side of the Schlossberg is rather sheer, so the shortcut--which included a lengthy series of switchbacks, narrow steps, fallen trees, and dead ends--added an extra hour to our trip. No regrets, however, as we got to see a cascade of tumbled down walls running from the top of the hill to the bottom, presumably part of the old fortifications.

We eventually reached the Dreisam and followed it to the park. The river begins between Kirchzarten and Stegen, at the confluence of the Rotbach and Wagensteigbach, and runs 29 km northwest until joining up with the Elz River in Riegel am Kaiserstuhl. As it flows through Freiburg, its water feeds the city's many Baechle (small canals). The river was re-engineered during the 19th century to deal with erratic flooding, and it now flows through disturbingly unwaveringly straight canals. Fortunately, the herons don't seem to mind.

*Sing along!

The tintinnabulation of the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells

It rained all day long. During a brief, promising sunny spell, Stefan, Elias, and I drove up to the Platte, an elevated area above St. Peter, to hike to some water falls. We had barely set foot out of the car when dark clouds and a renewed downpour descended upon us. So we drove back home and sat inside twiddling our fingers until we couldn't stand it anymore, and then we took a hike up the Schlossberg in the pouring rain. By the time we had finished collecting another few kilos of chestnuts, we were soaked but happy, and the weather was finally clearing.

Arriving at the Kommandantengarten, we heard the sound of bells all over the east side of Freiburg. When we reached the viewing tower atop the Schlossberg, the sound was joined by bells on the south side of town. It was quite the concert!



Those of you who know about my profound fear of heights might wonder how I got all the way up to the top of the tower. (Well, almost all the way up; I skipped the last part of the tower because--as Elias demonstrated with glee--if you hold onto the railing and thrust your weight back and forth, you can make the platform sway.) Turns out that my two trips climbing the Muenster tower have taught me about the heady pleasures of an adrenaline jolt. Next stop: the Schauinsland Turm.

We saw Stefan's mother off at the Bahnhof this morning. After three and a half weeks of hosting assorted visitors, we're ready to settle back into a more regular routine.

Not a photo opportunity

Today I trotted into the hills behind Herdern and made my way to the top of the Schlossberg on trails I hadn't traveled previously. Sometimes when it's gray and wet down in Freiburg, hiking into the hills will bring you over the fog into sunshine; not so today. Nonetheless, the mountain looked lovely in the mist.

In 1706, after the Habsburgers had recaptured their hold on the Schlossberg, someone decided the view of Freiburg down below would look better from a nice garden terrace, so they built one below the fortifications, in the fashionable French style. An 18th-century engineer's sketch of the Kommandantengarten suggests it included an Asian-inspired "Maison de plaisance." Only a hint of the garden--a semi-circular wall--remains.

Inside the wall are several tall trees, a bench, and, today at least, mysterious remnants of a fire pit begging to have its photograph taken.

Burning acorns

In addition to Kastanien, this is also the season for Maronen--edible chestnuts, as in "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" (or as Elias calls it, "the burning acorns song"*). They are falling in vast quantities on the trails leading from Herdern up to the Schlossberg. I interrupted a trot into the hills today to fill up my jacket pockets with a good kilo of nuts. Maronen are surrounded by needle sharp spiky husks that are best pulled apart by shoed feet or gloved hands. Tomorrow we'll cut slits into the shells and roast the nuts in the oven.

*The other day, Elias explained his talent for singing well-known songs: "I sing them, but I change the tunes and use new words."

Staufen and ruins

After following signs to the Ruine Zaehringer Burg the other day, I'm much enamored of ruins--and they're all over the place here, in various stages of collapse.

On Saturday, we visited Staufen, a few kilometers south of Freiburg. Staufen is most famous for being the site of Faust's death. That's right, Faust, as in Goethe's Faust. Faust was an alchemist and necromancer of dubious character (surprise!). He was invited to Staufen in 1539 by its indebted lord Anton von Staufen, and died that same year in the Loewen inn under suspicious circumstances. Thanks to the 1587 Historia von D. Johann Fausten, other early sources, and Marlowe's and Goethe's plays, we now know he died after his 24-year pact with the devil Mephistopheles ended, and he's currently suffering eternal damnation in Hell. That's what you get for selling your soul. (Is it just coincidence that Staufen and Fausten are anagrams?)

Staufen is also known for the ruins atop a hill on the north edge of town. Artifacts suggest the Romans had a watch tower on the hill long before Adalbert von Staufen commenced the current fortress around 1100. The Staufen lineage ended with Georg von Staufen in 1602, and the fortress was abandoned in 1607. In 1632, the Swedes came through and knocked it down.

Our topo-map showed there were additional ruins in them thar hills to the east, so we hiked in looking for them. Forest roads gave way to rugged trails that skirted around the top of the ridge. We finally resorted to bushwhacking our way through a Stinging Nettle Path of Glory (as Elias calls the painful overgrown trails), to the top of the Etzenbacher Hoehe, and came to the remains of the fortress: lots and lots of rocks distributed over a third of a kilometer or so. There was also a highway marker dated 1613, so perhaps the Swedes knocked this fortress down too while they were at it.

The Swedes weren't the only folks demolishing things. Freiburg's Schlossberg ("fortress mountain") rises behind the Altstadt, but there's no longer a Schloss on top. In 1366, fed up with their local lords, the Freiburgers themselves attacked the 12th-century fortress on the Schlossberg. Thanks to all the silver ore inside nearby Schauinsland, Freiburg was able to purchase its independence in 1368, and the city submitted itself to the protection of the Austrian Habsburgs. In 1668, the Habsburg Kaiser Leopold I rebuilt and strengthened the Schlossberg fortifications to protect against threats from Louis the 14th, but the French captured Freiburg in 1677. During various wars and occupations over the next 68 years, possession of Freiburg bounced back and forth between the Austrians and the French. In 1745, the French finally gave up hope of holding onto Freiburg and did a thorough job of knocking down the Schloss before leaving town.