Thursday night, Ana, Madyson, and I left Bonn by Flixbus for our Easter weekend plans. We slept on the overnight bus, and the next morning woke up in Basel, Switzerland. Even though I was feeling sleep deprived, I was excited for our plans. We were going to spend the next four days hiking through the Schwarzwald, the Black Forest. After eating breakfast and grabbing coffee at a Starbucks, we started our first days hiking. Although it was a slow start (we seemed to need to stop every hundred yards for the first mile), we eventually made it to the trail-head where the real hiking began.
We hiked north along a river for a few miles before crossing the border back into Germany. It was a little slower than when I hiked with Park, but my new companions kept things entertaining. After a few hours, it quickly became apparent that we were not covering ground fast enough, and I had to pick up the pace, much to Madyson and Ana's disappointed. The scenery was gorgeous, and we even passed a castle along the trail.
The weather was great, but towards the afternoon the others began struggling, and we really had to push to make it to our hotel for the night. After a twenty-six mile hike, we arrived at our accommodation and enjoyed dinner.
We stayed the night in a small town called Kleines Wiesenthal. The hotel upgraded our room, and we slept like babies. Our recuperating was cut short by morning, however, and we got an early start to the next day's hiking. We hiked from Wiesenthal to Tadtnau-Berg that day, which was another twenty-two miles. At this point we were really in the mountains, and while they aren't the tallest mountains, they still provided a nice challenge and beautiful views.
At this point, Ana and Madyson were requesting an airlift to get them out of the Black Forest. To be fair, the hiking had been tough, and our slow pace meant that it was taking all day. On top of that, they both had some pretty bad blisters, which I am sure was making it much worse. Fortunately, we were rewarded at the end of the day with a beautiful waterfall, which we climbed to get to our hotel. Once there, we enjoyed dinner and turned in early.
We slept in on Sunday before heading into Tadtnau. After looking around the cute mountain town, we rode a mountain coaster, which was super fun. The mountain coaster was completed driven by gravity, and each rider had a separate car that they could break or accelerate as they wished. After, we hiked back up the waterfall, and Ana and I hiked up the highest mountain in the Black Forest, Feldberg. Once we returned, it was another night of Italian food and early to bed.
The last day was a hike from Tadtnau to Frieberg. We stuck to the trails, but the views were some of the best yet, and we made good time. Our bodies were hurting by the end of the hike, but it was nice to finally complete it. Our Flixbus was supposed to leave Frieberg at 23:30, but it was delayed four hours. So, we passed the time by befriending some of our fellow passengers. I met a medical student and philosophy student from Italy, one attending school in Strasbourg and the other in Ghent. Talking with them helped pass the time, and it was not as bad as it would have been otherwise. We did not get back to Bonn until around 8:00 AM on Tuesday morning, and I was exhausted.
