Visit to Freiburg I

Last Saturday we traveled to Freiburg, a German university city about 90 minutes from Strasbourg. It's a very lovely city with lots of bookstores and other interesting shops. There are a number of very narrow little streets there, most paved with split stones from the Rhine. Here are Sophie and I in one of the most narrow, a street that leads to the cathedral square, the Münsterplatz.

And here's a picture of the stones up close. Most are only about three inches by about one inch.

We arrived in the late morning to find the square covered in a market selling fresh meats, fruits and vegetables, flowers, wooden toys and lots more.

And by "lots more" I mean, of course, slippers made of woven corn (I think) and rye stalks.

Here's a shot of the cathedral itself. Behind it you see the Schloßberg, a small, forested mountain I'll write more about in a later post.

Mindy made me photograph this particular gargoyle on the cathedral, I swear:

And for a slightly more proper view of the beautiful church, here's a picture of its tower clock:

We bought some tasty Freiburger Würste for lunch and picked some seats along the outside of the old merchants' hall (the red building below). It's from that vantage point we noticed the gargoyle above.

All three of us enjoyed one of these sausages, broken into three and stuck in a roll. Sophie likes mustard, but we skipped it this time for the sake of her clothes (due to her eating in her stroller).

Like Strasbourg, Freiburg is in the Rhine river valley (though neither are properly on the Rhine per se). It's a wine-growing area, and you'll frequently see real grape vines as decoration. We have some in the courtyard of our building, too.

Here's a proper shot of the merchants' hall:

We had a terrific day in Freiburg and look forward to getting back soon. We had so much fun in fact that I'm going to split our day into three blog posts.