Freiburg and Colmar, France

The kids and I have just over a month left until we move back to the US.  It seems so bittersweet to imagine this chapter of our lives in Germany coming to an end.  Before we came I had no idea what to expect.  It took several months to really settle in and now time has flown by.  The first day we arrived our German teacher (and translator....and liaison that helped us set up everything we needed to survive) said to us: "This time will go so fast for you, just try to enjoy it.  Before you know it you'll be closing accounts, packing up, and saying goodbyes."  I knew there was truth behind what she said.  So, here we are, doing exactly what she said.  I emailed the kids' school today to tell them when their last day would be.  I am slowly starting to go through closets and drawers to start purging and getting ready to pack.  Aside from preparing to move back we have been trying to squeeze in some more traveling before leaving Europe.

A few weeks ago we visited Freiburg, Germany and Colmar, France over a long weekend.  On the way to Freiburg we made a stop at Schauinslandbahn to ride the cable car and do some hiking.  It was very close to where we were staying in Freiburg and it had great views of the Black Forest from the top.

The cable cars arriving at the top

Views of the Black Forest

Finishing up our picnic lunch on the mountain

 There was a large tower at the top you could climb to get an even better view.

The tower!

A family picture at the top

View from the top with wind turbines: very common all over Germany

After our picnic lunch we hiked a loop around the top area of the mountain that took you to several notable landmarks.  First up after the tower was this hollow and carved piece of wood that spun around.  It was open at the top so you could observe the sky.

There was also a mining museum, we didn't pay to go through it because everyone (aka the kids) were already pretty tired from hiking.  Did I mention the trail was about 6 km?  It was still cool to see it from the outside.

 After coming down the mountain we checked into our hotel in Freiburg.  We headed downtown to a chain restaurant called "Vapiano."  I did a little research beforehand and they were supposed to have gluten free pizza.  Valerie was super excited, but we are always a little skeptical until we talk to the restaurant and verify that it is prepared in a completely safe way so there is no cross-contamination.  Even though they had some practices in place to make GF items (changing gloves, GF dough, etc.) all of the pizzas were baked in the same oven and they were rolling and throwing regular wheat dough in the same area where all of the GF pizza's were made.  It's a very open concept restaurant where you can watch them make everything.  After observing the pizza making for a good 5-10 minutes we just didn't feel like it was safe for her.  Do you know how hard it is to tell your 5 year old who thought they were getting pizza (which they hardly ever get in a restaurant) that they now can't?  Not fun, but thankfully, she understands and handled it well.  She doesn't want to feel sick and it would really ruin the whole weekend for her if she did.  Germany is not a very "Celiac-Friendly" country unfortunately.  It's nearly impossible to find restaurants that are safe.  On a positive note we did find GF ice cream and cones the next night.  The ice cream parlor was great.  They had wrapped GF cones and several flavors of GF ice cream.  The employee washed the scooper and her hands and got Valerie ice cream from a fresh batch in the back that had not been opened yet.  That's a happy girl!

GF Hazelnut Ice Cream on a GF cone!

On to Colmar, France....we drove to Colmar just for the day as it is just over the border. We have not made it to France yet, and this seemed like a nice close option.  It is a really pretty town in the Alsace region along the Rhine River.  It was small enough to walk around and see most of the highlights within a few hours.

The kids usually get bored of walking around historical cities pretty quickly.  However, we had planned to visit a park and an old carousel later in the day which motivated them to push through.  They loved the fountains in the park and the carousel.

We had dinner in a local beer garden (I wrote "garten" first oops...used to seeing "biergarten") back in Freiburg that evening and walked around the downtown area.  The kids loved all of the water canals....amazingly no one fell in because they were on almost every street.

Last stop was Triberg, Germany on the way home.  We visited Triberg in the fall with Jesse's parents.  It was a cute little town, famous for it's Cuckoo clocks.  We decided we'd stop on the way home to walk around and browse the clocks.  We didn't end up getting one, but it made for a nice drive home through the Black Forest.

Kids on the main street in Triberg