Black Forest High Road

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Baden Baden

   Baden-Baden is so nice they named it twice, as the old joke goes, though the doubling actually comes from distinguishing it from other places called Baden. Romans soaked in its hot springs, and the remains of their baths lie under the old town, but the town's golden age came in the nineteenth century, when European royalty, aristocrats, writers and gamblers flocked here to take the waters, stroll the avenues and lose fortunes at the casino. Dostoevsky, Turgenev and Brahms all spent time here. Baden-Baden is one of the eleven Great Spa Towns of Europe, listed together by UNESCO in 2021.

   Read the complete Baden-Baden write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Baden Baden is where the day begins. Next is Mummelsee.

2. 2. Mummelsee

   Mummelsee is a small, round, black lake in a hollow beneath the Hornisgrinde, the highest peak in the northern Black Forest at about 1,160 metres, and nearly every German has heard of it because of what lives there. According to the legend, the lake is home to the Mummel, water nymphs who dance on the surface at night, and to a lake king who holds court in a crystal palace on the bottom. Anyone who throws a stone in will cause a storm, and a few unwary visitors are said to have been pulled down. The old stories have given the place a quiet reputation for trouble, and the dark water does nothing to discourage it.

   Read the complete Mummelsee write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Mummelsee comes up about 27 km into the recorded legs. Next is Ruhestein.

3. 3. Ruhestein

   Ruhestein has no village, no church and no permanent population, and yet it is one of the more important places in the northern Black Forest. This is a pass on the B500, at 915 metres, where the High Road meets the road that drops west toward Allerheiligen and Oppenau, and where a junction has drawn a few inns and a car park. Today it is the gateway to the Black Forest National Park, which was founded in 2014, and where the forest is being allowed to grow wild, with fallen trunks left lying and storm damage left to regenerate on its own.

   Read the complete Ruhestein write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 33 km into the recorded legs you reach Ruhestein. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is Kniebis, mostly downhill.

4. 4. Kniebis

   Kniebis is a high, straggling village on the ridge at the southern end of the Black Forest High Road, a place where the forest opens out into heath and old fields. At around nine hundred metres, with open views to the south and the dark ridges of the Black Forest in every other direction, it has a bracing, slightly lonely feel. It belongs administratively to Freudenstadt, and it is best known as a spot for walking and cross-country skiing, with a network of trails across the moorland.

   Read the complete Kniebis write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Kniebis, late in the day. Next is Freudenstadt.

5. 5. Freudenstadt

   Freudenstadt was built to a plan. In 1599, Duke Frederick I of Württemberg laid out the town as a refuge for Protestants fleeing persecution in Austria, and the heart of it is a vast market square, one of the largest in Germany, an almost perfect square about two hundred metres on each side, with covered arcades along its edges. There was meant to be a castle in the middle, but it was never built, and the open space became the town's living room instead. The town, with about twenty-four thousand people, was almost destroyed at the end of the Second World War and rebuilt in a similar style.

   Read the complete Freudenstadt write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Finish at Freudenstadt. That is the ride.