Freiburger Langes Rot Day

Wednesday ended up to be just what Tuesday left off as, a rainy, overcast, and cool day and it started inauspiciously with the case of the missing coffee. In true mystery form we were asked about coffee, yet 10 minutes later it had not arrived, truly not what we have come to rely on from the hotel. The rest of the breakfast was wonderful as usual,  it the coffee had disappeared. When some finally came it had some of the same intensity to the flavor, but we noticed about an hour later that it had lacked the same caffeinated boldness as the previous two days. The conversation on our walk in the rain turned to it being Nescafé or Sanka, just like the MacDonald house in Kinlochleven a few years ago.

First order of business, finally get our tickets for Koblenz since we are headed there tomorrow. Easy enough done and the automated machines worked just fine for us, not sure why I had previously waited in line. Think we will try and get the tickets for Amsterdam prior to our departure tomorrow. We decided to just take the train directly to Koblenz and get the lay of the land and where we are staying, giving us time over the next couple of days to determine which Rhine boat tour we are thinking of taking down toward Mainz.

The rest of the day was sprinkled with trips to the museums since the weather had not remained our friend this day. Since we had been at the train station, our initial stop was the Colombischossle archeological museum. It is a great little museum in a wonderful setting on its own hill. It is small enough to not be overwhelming but has objects dating back nearly 10,000 years from this immediate area, very cool. The next wander was further into the altstadt again and the Augustinermuseum of religious antiquity, much of which came from the Munster in town. The religious history of Freiburg is quite intense, and not just from the Munster and other churches, the monasteries, seminary, and other religious facilities.

After wandering our way through the Augustinermuseum it was time to finally get down to what we hadn't been hungry enough for on previous days, the Freiburger Langes Rot sausage from the market. Steph went to Lichts' and I went to Hassler's, and needless to say, our decision was that Lichts' wurst was the better of the two. It was fun because the owner served Steph and decided she was not worthy of having it broken in half so it fit the bun, but was rather extended on both ends. The other person in the booth was being kind enough to break it in half before serving it. We just figured it was a tourist test, eat the sides down to the bun or take the moment to break it so it fits, which is what Steph did. Hassler's was more of a knockwurst and didn't have the same flavor I had come to expect of the Langes Rot. Oh well we have one more day to give it a try and plenty of other options to choose from at the market before heading north.

All this left two more minor shopping stop after going to the Museum for Modern Art. The modern art changed their upstairs exhibit, so no more launching yourself off a platform to make your own smashed box art form, this time it was an ecology and art exhibit playing on the idea of Freiburg as green city. Together I think er both agreed that the slave city exhibit was disturbing and ingenious, but we wanted to see even more about it. 

After the museum we wandered over to finally get Steph a slice of Schwartzwald Sacher torte from Kolben Kaffee Patisserie under the shadow of the Martinstor. We got it to go so that it could be savored as desert later in the evening. It was then time to track down a baschle duck for Steph, and not just to take back, it needed a good ride down a baschle or two first. We were able to find an SC Freiburg baschle duck and then took the short walk down to Rufs bakery for the ritual of afternoon coffee. This time we had a companion for the coffee.

The little duck seemed to enjoy a bit of Steph's cafe au lait. 

We relaxed back at the hotel a bit before final y wandering out for the duck's initiation to the open water streams throughout the old town and what better place for a first time that the ones around the Munster. Appropriate pictures of that will be added later when I am able to download it from the camera.

We returned to Martinsbrau tonight as we weren't overly hungry and wanted an adult beverage instead. The Freierling brewery was packed to the gills already, so we headed to the first hausbraureri of Freiburg for a nice relaxing drink and a nosh. We then wandered a bit more through the university campus and around a bit more before returning to the hotel to finally have the Black Forest cake. Makes for a nice end to another full day and has left is feeling there will be another trip back here and this time we will start going a bit further afield into the smaller alpine towns in the Black Forest.