The Black Forest: A Gentle Guide to Germany's Green Highlands

There are places that ask you to hurry, and places that ask you to breathe. The Black Forest belongs firmly to the second kind. It fills the south-western corner of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, stretching roughly 160 kilometres from Pforzheim in the north down to the Swiss border, with the Rhine valley and France on one side and gentle farmland on the other.

The name is older than any guidebook: the Romans called it Silva Nigra, the black wood, because the spruce stands so thick and dark that daylight seems to be swallowed whole. But the forest is only half the story. Between the trees lie high moors, meadows full of wildflowers, farmhouses with roofs like pulled-down hats, and small lakes left behind by Ice Age glaciers.

What makes it such good country for travellers in their sixties, seventies and beyond is simple: almost every great view here can be reached by road, rail or cable car. You can see the best of the Black Forest from a bench, a boat or a train window — and walk only as far as you feel like walking.

A little history

People have been coming here to feel better for a very long time. The Romans discovered the hot springs at what is now Baden-Baden in the second century, and the town has been a spa ever since, later drawing emperors, Russian novelists and card players to its grand bathhouses.

For centuries the forest valleys were poor and snowbound, and farming families filled the long winters with woodcarving and clockmaking. The cuckoo clock as we know it is credited to Franz Anton Ketterer, a clockmaker from the village of Schönwald; by 1808 the districts around Triberg and Neustadt counted hundreds of clockmakers and nearly as many pedlars carrying clocks across Europe on their backs.

The railway changed everything. In 1873 the engineer Robert Gerwig completed the Black Forest Railway, a bold line of tunnels and looping curves that finally opened the high valleys to visitors. More recently, the storm "Lothar" of December 1999 flattened whole hillsides — and in 2014 part of the northern forest became the Black Forest National Park, where the woodland is now left to heal itself.

The upturned root plate of a spruce on the Lothar Path in the Black Forest National Park.

What to see

The Black Forest High Road

The Schwarzwaldhochstraße (road B500) runs for about 60 kilometres along the northern ridge between Baden-Baden and Freudenstadt, and is one of Germany's oldest and best-loved scenic drives. There are laybys and viewpoint car parks all along it, several with cafés, so a whole day can pass pleasantly with nothing more strenuous than getting in and out of the car.

Mummelsee and the Hornisgrinde

This small dark lake sits above 1,000 metres directly beside the High Road, at the foot of the Hornisgrinde, the highest mountain of the northern Black Forest. A short, mostly level path circles the water in twenty minutes or so, and a boardwalk crosses the high moor on the summit plateau, with wide views west towards the Rhine.

Titisee and Schluchsee

In the southern Black Forest, Titisee is the region's largest natural lake — glacier-made, about two kilometres long — with a flat lakeside promenade, cafés and small passenger boats. Nearby Schluchsee, enlarged by a dam, is the biggest lake of all and noticeably quieter.

Triberg waterfalls

The Gutach river drops around 163 metres in seven steps through a mossy gorge — Germany's most accessible big waterfall, and the easiest to admire without a long climb.

The view west from the panoramic trail at the Lothar Path, northern Black Forest.

Easy and gentle walks

You do not need to be a hiker here. The forest is laced with wide, firm, well-signposted tracks that were built for foresters, which means steady gradients rather than sudden climbs.

• The Spechtpfad (Woodpecker Trail) beside the Lothar Path on the B500 is about 1.2 kilometres, entirely without steps, and gentle enough for wheelchairs and walking frames. A newer panoramic path from the same car park leads to a viewing platform over the northern heights.
• Around Mummelsee, the lakeside loop is level, broad and dotted with benches — perhaps the single easiest beautiful walk in the region.
• The Titisee promenade gives you water, mountains and cake in a flat half-hour.
• Forest tracks near Baiersbronn in the national park region are soft underfoot, shaded and almost flat along the valley floors; you can turn back whenever you like.

One honest warning: the original Lotharpfad itself is wonderful but climbs over footbridges, steps and short ladders. It is not a path for unsteady knees. Take the neighbouring level trails instead.

A quiet forest track in the Black Forest north of Obertal, Baiersbronn.

The comfortable way to see the scenery

This is where the Black Forest really earns its place on a slower itinerary. Four of its finest experiences involve sitting down.

The Black Forest Railway. Gerwig's line runs 149 kilometres from Offenburg to Singen, climbing some 670 metres through 37 tunnels. The stretch between Hornberg, Triberg and St. Georgen, where the track loops back on itself to gain height, is the one to ride. Sit on the right going uphill and simply watch.

The Schauinslandbahn. From Horben, just outside Freiburg, Germany's longest gondola lift carries you 3.6 kilometres and more than 700 vertical metres to near the summit of the Schauinsland (1,284 m). Opened in 1930, it was the world's first circulating passenger cable car. The cabins load slowly and the top station has a level café terrace.

The Feldberg cable car. It lifts you almost to the top of the Feldberg (1,493 m), the highest point in Germany outside the Alps, for an easy stroll on the plateau.

Boats on the lakes. Small passenger boats cross Titisee and Schluchsee in summer — a calm, seated hour with the forest sliding past.

Spruce woodland in the Black Forest National Park near Baiersbronn.

A day trip nearby

Freiburg im Breisgau sits at the forest's western edge and makes a lovely contrast to all that green. It is reputedly the sunniest city in Germany, and its old town is largely car-free: a sandstone cathedral with a filigree spire, two medieval gates, a daily market on the Münsterplatz, and the Bächle — narrow runnels of clear water set into the streets, which once carried water for fires and livestock and now cool the air in summer.

For over-60s, three things matter. The old town is flat, so distances are easy. The cobbles and the little water channels are not — look where you put your feet and wear firm shoes. And if you want the view over the rooftops without the climb, a short funicular railway runs up the Schlossberg hill from the edge of the centre.

From Freiburg it is a simple train or bus ride on to Titisee, and the Schauinsland gondola is only a few kilometres out of town.

Honest advice for comfortable travel

• Altitude means weather. The ridges sit around 1,000–1,500 metres, so it can be fifteen degrees cooler and much windier up top than in the Rhine valley below. Bring a warm layer and a rain jacket even in July.
• Stay low, travel up. Base yourself in a valley town with a railway station — Titisee-Neustadt, Triberg, Baiersbronn, Freudenstadt or Baden-Baden — and use trains, buses and lifts for the heights. You will walk far less than if you stay in an isolated hilltop hotel.
• Ask for the KONUS guest card. Guests staying overnight in participating accommodation that charges the local visitor's tax receive it free, and it covers regional buses and trains across much of the Black Forest. Confirm when you book.
• Request a ground-floor or lift-served room. Many traditional guesthouses are old farmhouses with steep wooden stairs and no lift.
• Mind the gradients in the villages. Triberg in particular is built on a slope; the walk back up from the waterfall entrance is steeper than it looks.
• Driving is relaxed but winding. Roads are excellent and well maintained, with many curves and frequent viewpoints. Allow more time than the map suggests, and let faster local traffic pass.
• Spa towns are a gift for tired legs. A thermal bath afternoon in Baden-Baden or Bad Wildbad is as much part of the region as the forest itself.

Open hillside in the Black Forest National Park near Baiersbronn.

What to eat

Baden cooking is widely held to be among the best in Germany, and it is hearty rather than heavy-handed. The two famous names you already know both come from here. Schwarzwälder Schinken, Black Forest ham, is dry-cured and cold-smoked until the outside is almost black and the inside deep red; it carries a protected EU designation and is served in thin slices with dark bread. Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte — Black Forest gateau — is layered chocolate sponge with whipped cream and sour cherries, the sponge moistened with Kirschwasser, the local cherry spirit. The real thing, in a Black Forest café, tastes nothing like the supermarket version.

Beyond those, look for Spätzle and the rounder Knöpfle, soft egg noodles that come with almost everything; Maultaschen, large pasta parcels filled with meat and spinach; Flammkuchen, the thin Alsatian-style tart with cream, bacon and onion; and fresh trout from the forest streams.

The valleys on the Rhine side are serious wine country — look for Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir) and Grauburgunder. And if a glass of clear fruit schnapps arrives after dinner, it is meant kindly.

Getting there

Our verdict

The Black Forest is one of the kindest destinations in Europe for travellers who want beauty without effort. Nowhere else do so many great viewpoints come with a car park, a café and a bench; nowhere else can you cross a mountain range by gondola, loop up a hillside by train and still be back for cake at four o'clock.

Go in September if you can, when the light turns golden between the trunks and the valleys are quiet. Give yourself five nights, keep two of them in the south near the lakes, and resist the urge to tick off every village. The forest rewards the opposite instinct.

And on at least one afternoon, do nothing at all: find a seat where the trees open onto a long green valley, let the cowbells and the wind do the talking, and understand why Germans have been coming here to recover for two thousand years.

Forested ridges in the Black Forest National Park near Baiersbronn.

“A dark wood with a soft heart — here the mountains carry you up, and all you must do is look.”

Photo credits

• Schonach - Paradies - Sonnenaufgang: Taxiarchos228, FAL via Wikimedia Commons
• Lothar Path - Black Forest National Park - Root plate 01: H. Zell, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Panoramic trail at the Lothar Path - Northern Black Forest 01: H. Zell, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Abondand track in the Black Forest at north of Obertal Baiersbronn 2020-03-11 03: Leonhard Lenz, CC0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Black Forest National Park Baiersbronn 2020-03-11 16: Leonhard Lenz, CC0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Black Forest National Park Baiersbronn 2020-03-11 02: Leonhard Lenz, CC0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Black Forest National Park Baiersbronn 2020-03-11 21: Leonhard Lenz, CC0 via Wikimedia Commons