2026 Black Forest, Germany
In March, we went for a couple of days to the Black Forest in Germany. It was a rather secretive trip as no one knew about it except the 2 of us. Early february, we had decided that after living together for 23 years, it was a good idea to finally get married.
Linda had already been following @michaelaroemer on instagram for a long time and she uses your old gold to make new jewellery, ideal for our wedding rings.
Michaela lives near Pforzheim in the Black Forest so we combined a visit to her workshop with a few days of hiking and cycling.
Video on DILISTUFF
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Hike along the Nagold to the Monbach valley in the footsteps of the Kingfisher
We arrived in the Black Forest the night before our appointment with Michaela and stayed in the Mönch's Waldhotel in Unterreichenbach. It's a family-run hotel in the typical Schwarzwald style.
In March, it's low season which means on the upside that lodging is not expensive and on the downside that many restaurants are still closed or have limited choice in menus.
It's of course like heaven when you have the hotel swimming pool just for yourself.
Our appointment with Michaela was later in the afternoon and we still had time for a nice hike in the neighbourhood. We found a 10 km walk on Komoot, starting from Bad Liebenzell in the Naturpark Schwarzwald Mitte/Nord.
The hike along the Nagold to the Monbach valley is one of the most popular ones in the area, is around 10.5 km and takes around 3 hours to complete. The path follows the Mombach for about 3 km's and the stream is crossed several times. It has no bridges and you go on stones over the water.
Depending on weather and season, the stones you walk on can be wet and covered with moss.
Komoot rates this walk as a score 4.5 on 5, easy to walk and requiring medium fitness.
We were happy that we brought our hiking poles.
Tour de Murg
As we also brought our bicycles, we checked in the neighbourhood where we could best go for some medium level cycling tracks. Best option was the area around Baiersbronn, some 60 km further south in the Black Forest.
Found a studio apartment on booking.com at 65 Euro per night, just outside the village and booked it straight away.
The studio was small but had really everything you can think of.
We could store the bikes on our private balcony and the building had a very convenient freight elevator from the outsite groundfloor.
It's in Booking as Schwarzwaldflair Apartment in Berglage and we afterwards got the phonenumber +49 1757870345 if you had questions for the owner.
The Tour de Murg is a very popular cycle track following the river Murg, It's 64 km from Freudenstadt to Rastatt and it's all downhill. (with just a few tiny exceptions of course). When you book lodging in the area, you also have free transport on the Murgtalbahn allowing you to take the train from any station along the track back to your starting point.
The route seamlessly blends stunning natural scenery with charming villages.
Instead of first taking the train to the start point in Freudenstadt, we opted to immediately start downhill from Baiersbronn.
From the endpoint (Rastatt), we would take the train up to Freudenstadt to do the missing part back to Baiersbronn.
On the train ride up to Freudenstadt, there were a lot of bikes and when another cyclist recuperated his bike, our bikes were entangled and the valve of my rear wheel broke off.
Change of plans: get off the train in Baierbronn to get it repaired and do the missed 7km tomorrow.
Zwei Täler Tour - Two valleys Tour
Yesterday, it was easy. All downhill.
Today it's the real thing. The 2 valley tour is a scenic 52 km cycling and hiking route starting in Freudenstadt and connecting the Murg and Kinzig valleys.
It features steep climbs, rapid descents and panoramic views of local lakes.
The route nearly passes our studio so we start from our lodging address and will do the remaining 7km from the Tour de Murg at the end of this trip.
Small detail: Elevation gain over the 52 km is 1.130 meter
There's only 1 place on the tour which is open for lunch this time of the year, the Kniebis Hütte in Kniebis. High time to go for an Ëintopf mit wurst" and a "Schwarzwalder kirsch torte".
While Linda was able to ride the complete tour without having to get off the bike, I (Dirk) had to push several times when it was too steep for too long. Need to do some exercising before we head off to our next trip in Norway.
