Driving Inspiration: The Black Forest
There’s more to this idyllic region than fairy tales and cuckoo clocks. Find time for an autumn break in the south-west of Germany.
- Driving inspiration
- Germany
- Autumn in the Black Forest
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Why visit the Black Forest in Autumn?The autumn months are the perfect time to visit the Black Forest in south-western Germany. The ‘Schwarzwald’ (Black Forest) is so named because of how dense the pine, spruce and fir trees grow, blanketing the wooded hillsides. Historically, this gave the area a sense of darkness and mystery, spawning fairy tales, myths and legends. But there’s nothing Grimm about the Black Forest, especially in autumn.
It is the golds, reds and oranges of the leaves that make the Black Forest such a treat to drive through in September, October and November. With the crowds and heat of summer gone, and the snows of winter yet to come, the Black Forest is the ideal location for an autumnal German road trip. You’ll visit picturesque mountain villages, see spectacular landscapes and eat hearty food and drink in one of Germany’s most traditional regions. -
Driving to the Black Forest from CalaisThe spa town of Baden-Baden is the gateway to the Black Forest, and driving there from the LeShuttle terminal at Calais takes only around 6 ½ hours. You’ll drive mainly on the A26 and A4 through France, passing close to Reims, Metz and Strasbourg. You should expect to pay tolls on this route. To avoid tolls try the route through Belgium, via Ghent, Brussels and Liege. This will take at least an hour longer, but the money you’ll save will come in handy!Read more about driving to Germany
There are two main Black Forest scenic routes – the ‘Schwarzwaldhochstraße’ or High Road is the classic B500, running from Baden-Baden southwards to Freudenstadt. It’s only 40 miles long (65 km), but you could easily take several days over this route, stopping at many attractions. The other is the ‘Deutsche Uhrenstraße’ (the clock route), a 267 km circular drive taking in the places associated with the cuckoo clock, one of the enduring symbols of the Black Forest.
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The best things to do in the Black Forest in Autumn
- See the world’s largest cuckoo clock
- Take a steam train over spectacular viaducts
- Be captivated by stunning Black Forest villages
- Enjoy a spa day at Lake Titisee
- Hike the Westweg, one of Germany’s iconic trails
Explore charming Black Forest villages
Driving through the Black Forest in autumn, you are spoilt for beautiful villages and small towns along the way. Some of the most breathtakingly picturesque are Schiltach and Gengenbach, with their half-timbered houses, cobblestone lanes and colourful shutters, nestling beneath forested mountainsides.
You’ll get all the fairy-tale feels here – fittingly in this region that inspired the Brothers Grimm, and where history and tradition has been so charmingly preserved. Elsewhere explore places like Triberg, with its spectacular waterfalls, and Baiersbronn, a collection of nine villages with an incredible food scene – its restaurants share multiple Michelin stars between them!
Find time for the Clock Route
The Black Forest is the birthplace of the cuckoo clock. No one knows who invented the first one or where it chimed, but by the 18th century the Black Forest hills were alive to the sound of the mechanical wooden clocks.
The Clock Route (‘Deutsche Uhrenstraße’) is a circular driving route which visits places associated with the development of the cuckoo clock and watchmaking in general. Triberg is perhaps the ultimate clock town, boasting the world’s largest cuckoo clock (more a cuckoo house, in fact) which you can step inside; there are also museums of clockmaking at Villingen-Schwenningen and Furtwangen, and numerous factories, studios and museums dedicated to timepieces of all kinds.
Hike in the Black Forest hills
Germany’s first official hiking trails were established in the Black Forest and they remain among the most popular long distance routes for walkers. The Westweg, Mittelweg and Ostweg trails all start at the town of Pforzheim in the north of the region.
The Westweg runs for 290 km to Basel in Switzerland, and is split into day stages of around 20 km. It is mainly a high level route, giving walkers stunning views of the Rhine valley and the Vosges mountains in France. The Mittelweg is a slightly shorter, 230 km trail that runs southward, taking in highlights like the spa town of Bad Wildbad. The Ostweg is a 245 km route down the eastern side of the Black Forest, passing through the clock town of Villingen-Schwenningen, and traversing the peaks of the Randen mountains. For those seeking shorter walks, you’ll also find numerous day hikes or circular trails, all well waymarked. If you’re lucky you’ll get to see deer and wild boar, as well as a rich array of birdlife.
Take a ride on a heritage railway
All aboard the Black Forest express! There are some wonderful heritage and steam services in the region.
The ‘Schwarzwaldbahn’ (Black Forest Railway) runs from Offenburg to Singen, taking in the Kinzig valley, the Triberg waterfalls and the source of the Danube at Donaueschingen. Don’t be alarmed by the ‘Hell Valley Railway’ – the Höllentalbahn is so named because of the steepness of some of the sections, as it winds its undulating way through tunnels and over viaducts, through some of the more remote but spectacular parts of the Black Forest.
For steam enthusiasts there is a steam train service that operates on the ‘Dreiseenbahn’ (Three Lakes Railway), linking the lake resort of Titisee to the Windgfällweiher and Schluchsee reservoirs.
Visit open-air museums
The Black Forest is one of the best places in Germany to see living and breathing local customs, crafts and traditions.
Whether it is the mountain chalets or traditional local dress, you’ll find Black Forest culture celebrated at several open air museums. The one at Vogtsbauernhof, right in the heart of the region, is a working village with houses, farms, gardens and workshops, built around the original farmhouse dating from 1612. If you’re visiting in the autumn, please be aware that the Vogtsbauernhof museum is only open until early November.
The Klausenhof Open Air Museum (pictured, right) in the south of the Black Forest region offers a unique experience for visitors, with demonstrations of the way people lived and worked, all set around the thatched chalet built in 1424, making it one of the oldest surviving original buildings in the Black Forest. The Klausenhof museum, in the town of Herrischried, is open all year round, but closed on Mondays and Wednesdays.
(image credit: Stefan Karl, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
Relax at a thermal spa surrounded by autumn colour
What’s the cherry on top of the Black Forest gateau? Surely having a spa day at one of the many resorts and hotels around this enchanting region.
The gateway to the Black Forest, Baden-Baden, is home to natural healing waters that spring up from a depth of 2,000 metres. You can bathe in the thermal waters at the Caracalla Spa and the Friedrichsbad Spa. Caracalla offers a more modern bathing experience, with saunas, steam baths, massages and wellness treatments, while Friedrichsbad, opened in 1877, is like bathing in a Roman temple! It’s a relaxing sort of place. Mark Twain said that when visiting Friedrichsbad, ‘after 10 minutes you will forget the time and after 20 minutes the world’.
Don’t forget, however, to check in at Lake Titisee, the pleasure resort that has grown up around the glacial lake in the south of the Black Forest. Badeparadies Schwarzwald is the spa attraction here – take your pick from a huge array of pools, saunas, massage lounges and a family-friendly water park.
Black Forest FAQs
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