When we checked in to our hotel in Black Forest, we were surprised to be given a guest card which enabled us to take the regional transport free of charge and gives discounts at lot of places.
Today we thought instead of driving in our car, we should take the opportunity of travelling from Gengenbach to Baden Baden via the Schwarzwaldbahn. The trains run every half an hour and it takes about 35 mins to reach Baden Baden.
The first thing that you notice here is that the station is quite far away from the city centre. We tried to search in a huge map outside the station as to where we were and how to reach the city centre, however the fun part is that there is no 'you are here' on the map, so after searching for quite some time, we decided to take a bus to Leopoldstrasse/Stadtmitte. It was quite a guess that the bus stop that we picked was actually where the tourist information centre was located.
The tourist information centre building was quite beautiful and the staff friendly. We were planning to do a hike of the Panoramaweg, the best and most scenic hike acknowledged in Germany. We bought the map from the tourist centre and started walking towards the general direction shown in the map.
Now, staying in England for 5+ years, you quite get used to the way of how detailed the maps are and the markings on the streets are, and here this was like searching for a needle in the haystack.
We finally started walking towards Neue Schloss
which seemed to be in the way and our starting point of the hike.
After climbing a lot of steps we finally reached schlossstrassen, from where we went past the new castle and finally came to a vast meadow where we finally thought our walk could begin.
As soon as entered the meadow, the first thing that we saw was cherry trees, and my wish finally came true. We picked some cherries and finally started walking up.
There we saw our first marker of Panoramaweg. The hike took us quite uphill, with a small top in between to fill our bottle with cold water and continuing up to the Old castle.
We took in the panaromic view here and then started on our roundweg, towards Battertfelsen. This is quite a paradise for rock climbers but the hike from bottom of these rocks is also worth it. We continued past the rocks toward Engelskanzel via dense black forests. Our hike uphill thankfully was over and we now had to make our way downhill.
We took a stop at a restaurant in Wolfsschlucht and ate the nicest strawberry cake at this restaurant. After taking a food n drink break, we were now energised to continue on our final way.
The hike again led us through forests and we reached down near Merkurbergbahn.
From here on the Panormaweg was more of a road trip and hence instead of continuing our way via foot, we decided to call it a day and took a bus 205 to the city centre again.
We walked a bit around the centre, but since it was already 6 pm, the shops were starting to close.
We took the 201 bus back from Augustusplatz to station (15 min ride)and took a 6.39 train back to Gengenbach.
If anyone is not interested in doing the hike, the Panoramaweg is 45 km in length surrounding Baden Baden and can be driven through as well.
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