If you get a chance for even just one day in Freiburg, grab it!

From our base of stay in Basel, Switzerland, we took an easy and quick train ride to nearby Freiburg, Germany. (More formally, the town goes by Freiburg im Breisgau.)

As we had limited time—just from midmorning through dinner (our group didn’t want to get up too early to take the train)—we had to carefully curate our activities for the trip. We wanted to at least sample the variety of experiences Freiburg has to offer, from nature and Black Forest views through to history and culture.

With careful planning, we managed it!

A Walking Tour of Old Town Freiburg

We started our visit with a walking tour of the medieval central old town, which we arranged through the Freiburg tourist office.

Though the office’s website indicated that it offered no English-language tours on the day of our visit, we called to confirm and, if true, to get a recommendation for a private guide. Fortunately, the tourist office assured us we could have a tour in English from one of their guides if we arrived by a certain hour on the given day. Travel tip, therefore: Even if you don’t see a tour listed when you plan to be in a town, call to check on possibilities!

The tour lasted about two hours, providing a nice overview of the town and its history, including its architecture and key buildings in the area—including the cathedral. (More on that in a moment!) We also passed through the vibrant market around the cathedral, which lasts until just after lunch every day except Sunday. After the tour, we took a quick pass through the market and then had a drink at one of the cafes around the cathedral square.

The Freiburg Minster

Started and finished in the early 13th century, the Freiburg Minster dominates—gorgeously—the medieval town and stands out distinctly from the Black Forest surrounding Freiburg.

This cathedral survived the Second World War effectively unscathed. Its medieval tower, built in the 14th century, is the only German church tower of its time that survived the bombings.

You can climb the tower for a small fee, and I highly recommend you do if you can! Though the spiral staircase is narrow—making crossing people going up when you’re heading down, and vice versa, a close-quarters challenge—and the tower a high one at 116 meters, you’ll get an incredible panoramic view when you emerge at the top.

The Schlossbergterm via Funicular

The Schlossbergterm is a tower rising above the Schlossberg (a very steep hill) that you can climb to get an incredible 360-degree panoramic view of Freiburg and its Black Forest surroundings—and from which you can see all the way to towns across the border in France.

While you can certainly climb to the tower from the city center, you can also buy tickets on a short funicular called the Schlossbergbahn for a nominal fee. However, the funicular does not take you all the way up to the tower—only close. You then must hike up a winding path for about seven to ten minutes to reach the tower. (After which, yes, you then need to climb the tower.)

While we enjoyed the exercise and the nature excursion, especially right after a walking tour of a dense medieval city and a visit to a majestic cathedral, which felt so urban, do expect to need to exert a little energy to get to and atop the Schlossbergterm, even if you take the funicular.

A Gastronomic Dinner

After a walking tour, two tower climbs, and a brief hike, we felt we deserved a good dinner!

We had done our research before traveling to Freiburg, but visiting a restaurant for the first time always makes for a bit of a gamble. Luckily, this one paid off!

If you have only a day trip planned to Freiburg and need to catch a train somewhere before the day ends, you need a restaurant that takes reservations reasonably early. Not only does Löwengrube open early by most European dining standards—and was willing to take us ahead of our reservation time when we showed up in advance, too—it has a central old-town location, soothing ambiance, and gorgeous, fresh, gastronomic food.

You can choose to order from the menu or you can choose one of two dining experiences organized around how many plates you’d like for your meal (three or five). And the food! Delicious, every single item ordered. So good that we forgot to take photos!

Only Have a Day? Go!

No one can spend a day in a place and say they’ve seen it. Having to decide what to do in our short time in Freiburg made the planning portion of our visit incredibly difficult.

I’ll definitely aim to make my way back.

Yet if you can only pass through Freiburg im Breisgau for a day, you absolutely should!