We did a day trip to Freiburg, a bustling city only about half an hour away from Offenburg. It was lively and bustling, and we wandered through the Old Town based on a ChatGPT- and tourism-map-suggested route. We saw another gorgeous cathedral (Freiburger Münster), the old cemetery (Alter Friedhof Freiburg), and the historic city gates (Martinstor).
All throughout Freiburg's Old Town, there were stone mosaics embedded in the pavement in front of shops and stores. Although they didn't always line up perfectly, Jill and I realized that, more often than not, they hinted at what each business was selling... a pretzel for a bakery, a wine glass for a wine shop, an lamb for a butcher, and so on. I later learned that these were Freiburg's famous Gehwegmosaike (sidewalk mosaics) which had been in Freiburg since the 1800s and experienced a revival in the 1970s when the old town became pedestrianized.
I saw that there was another funicular we could take up to a viewpoint on the Schlossberg hill and we all know how much I love these little cable cars. We took the three-minute ride up, wandered to a few different lookouts, and then walked back down.
We had a refreshing break in the beer garden at Hausbrauerei Feierling. Jill ordered a Helles and I had a radler. It was the perfect way to cool off before buying heaps of cosmetics and skincare items at dm (a must stop for cheaper products!) and heading back to Offenburg.
Ulm
Jill and I went our separate ways in the morning, with her off to Switzerland and me continuing through Germany. My next destination was Ulm, famed for its towering Gothic church and as the birthplace of Albert Einstein. It was the perfect place to spend a day and night solo before moving on to Munich.
Ulm Münster
The Ulm Münster is a dominating presence in the city. It has the tallest church steeple in the world, standing at 161.5 m (530 ft). While the Sagrada Família in Barcelona is now taller overall following the completion of its central tower and cross, Ulm still holds the record for the tallest church steeple.
Unfortunately, as is often my luck during my Euro trips, the Münster is undergoing restoration work, so scaffolding surrounds it both inside and out. The steep €9 price to climb the tower didn't seem quite worth it when visitors could only go partway up, so I stayed on the ground. Maybe next time. However, I did get to see a Lego version of the Münster (made out of 112,000 bricks!).
Albert Einstein's Birthplace
Next up was visiting Ulm's Einstein monuments. Einstein was born in Ulm, although he only lived here for about a year before his family moved to Munich. The house where he was born was destroyed during WWII, but an artistic memorial now stands on its former location in a pedestrian shopping area. I also tracked down the rather odd-looking Einstein Fountain, which features his head emerging from a snail riding a rocket.
Brot und Kunst
The quirky art in Ulm doesn't stop with the Snail Einstein. There's also the Museum Brot und Kunst (Museum of Bread and Art), and I do love a quirky, oddly specific museum. The museum was almost completely empty, likely because the upper floors were a brutal 30°C due to the lack of air conditioning. The clerk was incredibly friendly, and in addition to bilingual English explanations beside every exhibit, there was also an English audio guide.
The museum explores the history of bread, breadmaking, and the cultural and human significance of this staple food. It also showcases an impressive collection of paintings, photographs, and sculptures inspired by bread.
Some of the quirkier highlights included pairings of chairs and bread (for example, a Kaiser roll displayed beside a chair that also debuted at the 1867 Paris World's Fair, or a Richard Riemerschmid chair compared to a loaf of rye bread), a head sculpted entirely from bread dough ("Busts of important historical figures are usually made from bronze or marble, materials intended to stand the test of time. But if art is to be alive, then shouldn't it age and decay, just like all living things?"), and a wonderfully bizarre sculpture by Dalí.
There was also a temporary exhibit on honey. While I was honestly too sweaty to give it the attention it deserved, I particularly liked the work of artist Bärbel Rothhaar, who creates portraits of beekeepers out of beeswax before returning them to active hives, where the bees gradually reshape and transform the sculptures.
After a cold shower reset and a jacket potato dinner, I explored a little more of the town, even though my energy meter was rapidly failing. I saw the world's "most crooked hotel" (Hotel Schiefes Haus) and wandered through the picturesque Fischerviertel district to the river during my evening stroll.
Onwards to Munich, next!
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