The Best Way to Explore the Black Forest | Breisach to Hofgut Sternen to Freiburg with Viking River Cruises

Exploring the Black Forest with Viking Cruises

Happy Monday, y’all! This week’s post isn’t a city guide, but rather a city recap of our time in the Black Forest and it’s surrounding towns.

This was our first official stop on our Rhine Getaway with Viking Cruises, and what a beautiful stop it was! The Viking Alruna (our Viking longship) docked in Breisach, Germany, a small town just outside of the black forest. We then took an hour bus ride through the rolling hills and vinyards of this German region and arrived in a Black Forest village called Hofgut Sternen. There we enjoyed lots of fun things (no spoilers in this intro!). After our time in the town of the giant cuckoo clock, we took a scenic drive through the Black Forest and Freiburg back to Breisach.

In this post we’re just going to chat about our experience on this part of our tour. It’s more casual than our usual posts, but this tour was more casual than many other Viking excursions.

If you’d rather watch the experience, check out our vlog:

The Drive

The drive from Breisach to Hofgut Sternen is absolutely breathtaking. There is no photo or video that could possibly do it justice. Just add ‘drive through Black Forest villages’ to your bucket list, especially the Breitnau area.

After we drove through Breisach, we entered this magical world of vinyards. Just vinyards, vinyards everywhere! In this region of Germany, one of the primary occupations is grape growing. These amazing people create their own types of grapes and grow traditional grapes. Our tour guide, Jessica, was talking about how important that craft is to this region, and to Germany as a whole. If you want good wine, you need good grapes. These artists grow great grapes.

Once we were about halfway through the drive we stumbled upon exactly what we’d been waiting for… SNOW! We both gasped.

It was the perfect dusting of white over the vast fields of green. The quaint Black Forest villages looked mighty fine with their historical buildings and churches topped with white.

Even though there is no way to possibly capture the pure beauty of this region, Joanie B.’s photos do a pretty great job!

Hofgut Sternen

After about an hour of scenic driving, we arrived in Hofgut Sternen. This isn’t a residential village like the ones we passed on our journey from Breisach. Hofgut Sternen was actually created for tourists, so they could experience the magic of the Black Forest. It’s kind of like hopping into a Black Forest snow globe and experiencing all of the regional traditions like glass blowing, woodworking, and more all in one place.

When we got off the Viking bus the first thing we saw was a giant cuckoo clock. It’s one of the largest fully functioning cuckoo clocks ever made and it’s beautiful! We stood there for a while just watching the little people dance around the top of the clock.

While in Hofgut Sternen we had the chance to watch a cuckoo clock presentation where the presenter talked about how they’re made, how long it takes, and even showed us the inner working parts of a few smaller clocks. The smallest clock he showed took 70 hours to create. There’s an immense amount of artistry that goes into the process on top of all of the technical work to make the clocks work. Joanie B. found her dream cuckoo clock, which was actually a gorgeous grandfather clock. Only $12,000…

We didn’t bring it home.

We did however pick up a few handmade wooden ornaments while we were there.

Although we didn’t see it ourselves, in a building just across the way from the cuckoo clock presentation there was a demonstration of glass blowing. This is a very common art form in this area of Germany.

If none of that artsy stuff interests you, there are also some gorgeous hiking trails all around Hofgut Sternen where you can see Breitnau in all of its glory.

Black Forest Cake

After we marveled over the clocks, we made our way downstairs for a black forest cake demo.

Of course we had to enjoy some sweets before the presentation. So we chowed down on a Christmas Black Forest cake dessert, which was to die for! It was so good that Joanie took it around to the other Viking tables so everyone could have a taste. We also had a raspberry jello topped dessert and OH MY GOODNESS! It was so fresh and yummy. Jenni almost ate it all by herself.

We have a video of the cake demonstration in our blog. If you click this link it will take you directly to that part of the video. We’ll also link a black forest cake recipe here.

Chef Philip used three white cake rounds, cherry flavored kirsch (brandy), a chocolate block, lots of cream, and some fresh cherry jam.

The process is fairly simple. Take the first layer, drizzle with brandy, top with jam and lots of cream. Next cake layer, more brandy, and more cream. Next layer: more cream. Cover the cake in cream and grated chocolate. Decorate and enjoy!

Briesach

Since we were in Breisach on Sunday, everything was pretty much closed. There were a few cafés open and the Christmas market (which appeared to be for kids) was also open. Several people on the ship decided not to come into town, but since the ship was less than a five minute walk we couldn’t resist.

We took our cameras around town, snapping photos and taking video of all of the cute little buildings. Then we walked up toward the church and enjoyed the view from above Breisach.

It was a little chilly, but extremely comfortable for the walk!

This was one of the most peaceful ports on the Rhine Getaway and we had a blast! Everything we saw was straight out of a storybook. I honestly think the best way to see the Black Forest is through a Viking
River Cruise.

Since it was the most lowkey day, Viking did a safety drill after everyone returned from Hofgut Sternen. if you watch the vlog you’ll see Jenni’s unfortunate mishap during the drill. If you don’t watch the vlog then you’ll never know (watch the vlog)!

If you want to book your own Viking cruise, just click this link and find the perfect one for you. Don’t forget to tell them that Joanie and Jenni B. sent you!

A very special thank you to Viking for allowing us to adventure with you!

If you want to see more adorable German towns, check out this post from Melissa at A Solo Woman Traveling on the most idyllic small towns in Germany.

If you’d like to support this wild ride, become a Patron, we have some awesome reward tiers. Sometimes we even pick up little gifts for you along our travels. Also don’t forget to check out our last post all about Basel, Switzerland.

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