Visiting the Black Forest Town of Freiburg, Germany with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting the Black Forest Town of Freiburg, Germany with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The one-thousand-year-old town of Freiburg Im Breisgau is a shopper’s venue for hand carved, wooden cuckoo clocks as you would expect for a site so close to the Schwarzwald, or Black Forest.  Master woodcarving shows up all throughout town on the façades of wood buildings and on corner turrets of many houses.

The old coexists amiably with the modern in Freiburg.  Trams whisk multitudes of people around town.  Germany wants to be an energy-independent nation, and trams are one means of reducing dependence on oil.  Solar panels on rooftops are another means of becoming energy-independent as are solar panel fields on hillsides that are oriented towards the sun.

On the side of trams, I saw advertising for Freiburg’s sister city relationship with Madison, Wisconsin.  Madison is one of the many places I have called home.  The five-hundred-year-old university in Freiburg gives the town a cosmopolitan flair as the University of Wisconsin does for Madison.  Pairing Madison up with Freiburg is a great match, especially as Madison and Wisconsin in general have a large population of descendants of German immigrants.

University towns everywhere seem to have an abundance of pizza parlors.  German-style pizza parlors are actually doner-pizza parlors run by Turks.  Turks are the largest minority grouop in Germany, and every town seems to have a doner-pizza parlor.

Pizza is well known, but doner kebab needs an introduction.  Doner resembles Greek gyros and Arab shwarma.  All three are meat cooked on a vertical spit.  Doner is made with lamb and seasoned with ground red pepper, cumin, and thyme to give it its particular flavor.  It is sliced to order and served in a flat bread with salad.  The aroma is delectable as is the finished product.

Many people eat doner and other treats outside when the weather permits.  

The proximity of Freiburg to the Black Forest gives visitors an ideal base for tours and hikes as well as visits to nearby Switzerland.  The Black Forest is Germany's lung and makes the air in Freiburg pure to breathe.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Laaurent Paget Photography

Laurent Paget Photography

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Visiting Germany's Alpine Lake Constance Resort with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Germany's Alpine Lake Constance Resort with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

All the Stuttgart, Germany license plates that my husband Laurent and I saw on the way to Konstanz let us know that this quiet resort town is a favorite destination of city dwellers.

Konstanz lies on the border with Switzerland and shares Lake Constance with the Swiss as well.  Lakeside walks allow you to see mist rising off the lake at dusk.  Pedestrians, bicycles, and trams share sidewalks.  Bike lanes in both directions are indicated to prevent mishaps.  High-end antique shops offer one-of-a-kind finds from England.  Queen Elizabeth II has even visited the antique shop in the pedestrian-only down town.

We came to enjoy some nice strolling and a nice dinner out, but had forgotten that you have to reserve a table in advance to dine out in Germany on a Friday night. Since we had neglected to do that, we went scouting for a restaurant about two hours before dinner time.

We found a restaurant named Ruppaner that was founded in 1795, which let us eat early.  We expected to find a very German restaurant inside with beer steins and cuckoo clocks, but found Western décor with modern paintings on the walls.  Ruppaner had changed its name to Bonanza and offered steaks in addition to German fare.

The steaks came in four sizes – small, medium, large, and extra large.  Laurent ordered a small rumpsteak, which turned out to be pretty large while I ordered maultaschen, which resembles ravioli in heartier proportions.

Maultaschen are a specialty of the Swabian region of southeastern Germany.  These pockets of pasta are filled with a combination of spinach, onion, white bread, egg, and cooked chicken, beer, or pork according to former restaurant critic and author Mimi Sheraton in The German Cookbook: A Complete Guide to Mastering Authentic German Cooking.  Sheraton likens maultaschen to Italian ravioli as well, but also mentions that they resemble Jewish kreplach and Chinese won-tons.

The maultaschen I ate appeared to be stuffed with pork and the ingredients mentioned above.  The thick dough was tender and was covered with small fried onions and their pan juices.  Fried potatoes accompanied the dish.  It was all very good and made me feel like we had eaten in a restaurant with culinary traditions dating back to 1795.

The strolls around town and meal in Konstanz made for a nice getaway from our busy life in Stuttgart.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Visiting the Cathedral at Cologne, Germany with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting the Cathedral at Cologne, Germany with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget 

When Emperor Frederic Barbarossa had relics of the three magi who visited the infant Jesus transferred from Milan, Italy to Cologne, Germany in 1164, he created the need for a pilgrimage cathedral on an earlier religious site dating from the fourth century according to Cologne Cathedral written by Arnold Wolff.

The Cathedral at Cologne soars above your head as you enter to the height of 142 feet (43.35 meters) in the nave; the cathedral dwarfs the visitor.  Wide lateral aisles allow for great numbers of pilgrims to circulate around the main altar holding the golden shrine of the three magi, which resembles a basilica with a towering central nave with lower sides.  However, the shrine is three separate shrines set together in this fashion.  The resemblance to a basilica is incidental.

The presence of the relics of the three magi caused this immense cathedral to be built, but the homilies delivered by its great scholar priests have made it a center of scholarship and piety as well.  The Dominican priest Albert Magnus (1206 – 1280) taught at Cologne as did Meister Eckhart (1260 – 1328) and the Scottish Franciscan Duns Scotus (1266 -1308).

Albert Magnus was famous for his defense of the mendicant orders and a famous professor of theology, philosophy, and natural science.  His most famous student was Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274).

Meister Eckhart is most famous as a mystic, who had a head for business.  His homilies are written in simple and elegant German according to The New Advent Encyclopedia.

John Duns Scotus was an early supporter of the Immaculate Conception of Mary.

Lofty theological debate and philosophical discussion still take place in Cologne as you witness groups of prelates bustling around the cathedral deep in discussion.  However, there is great charm at the cathedral in Cologne as well.  The day my husband Laurent and I visited a group of schoolchildren were touring with their teachers.  They stopped by the shrine of the three magi.  When their teachers explained what it was, they lifted their eyes upward with their mouths open.

Cologne Cathedral inspires awe among the faithful of many generations.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Laurent Paget Photography

Laurent Paget Photography

Laurent Paget Cathedral

Ruth Paget Selfie

Visiting Aachen, Germany (Aixe-la-Chapelle, France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Aachen, Germany (Aixe-la-Chapelle, France) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget


I first saw Aachen Cathedral as a college student at the University of Chicago in my year-long “Art of the West” art history course.  The black-and-white photograph of the octagonal Carolingian Chapel was the only image of the cathedral in H.W. Janson’s History of Art, yet I wanted to see Aachen Cathedral the minute I saw it.

Now almost thirty years later, my husband Laurent and I have made an art pilgrimage to Aachen, Germany known as Aix-la-Chapelle in French.  Aachen lies close to the Belgian border and houses the remains of Charlemagne (742 – 814), who ruled over modern-day France and Germany as a united kingdom.  Division of these two lands came after his death as his various sons inherited different parts of his kingdom.

Charlemagne had Aachen Cathedral built to resemble the octagonal, sixth-century church of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy.  Ravenna was part of the Byzantine Empire.  By modeling his cathedral on San Vitale, Charlemagne assumed the stature of a Byzantine monarch, who was just as much a temporal ruler as a theocrat.

Another element of Aachen Cathedral that is modeled after San Vitale is the use of mosaics in the cupola and decoration of the church.  The actual mosaics do not date from the time of Charlemagne.  However, they reflect the high esteem and care that the parishioners of Aachen Cathedral feel for their place of worship. Green marble covers the walls and patterned marble covers the floor.  The cathedral is luxurious yet inviting at the same time.

Charlemagne’s throne is visible on the second floor of the cathedral from the altar.  Monarchs often sat on the second floor of churches to worship unobserved.  Thirty German kings and twelve German queens have been anointed and crowned on Charlemagne's throne according to the Concise Guide to Aachen Cathedral, which is available for purchase in the cathedral entryway.

As we left Aachen Cathedral, I thought of my art history classes and how they have guided and informed my travel itineraries for the last thirty years; they were worth the entire tuition at the 
University of Chicago.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books

Laurent Paget Photography

Laurent Paget Photography

Laurent Paget Photography

Ruth Paget Selfie