Quality and long-distance trails

The Black Forest has an astonishing network of around 15,000 miles/24,000 km of marked hiking trails. Some are easy loops; others are geared to hikers, who want to spend a couple of weeks getting away from it all.

The most famous is the Westweg, the Western Trail that actually runs north-south. Between Pforzheim and Basel (Switzerland), this was the world’s first long-distance hiking trail. Now over 100 years old, it is still one of the top ten trails in Germany. On this 175-mile/280-km route, you pass a dozen towns or villages. Allow 16 days if you want to cover the whole distance: enjoy meadows and forest, waterfalls and streams along the way.

Other popular long-distance hiking trails include the Schwarzwald-Querweg Freiburg-Bodensee. This is the 110-mile/180-km “Cross Route” running east-west through the Black Forest, from Konstanz, on Lake Constance, to Freiburg.

Shorter hikes in the Black Forest include the 14-mile/22-km long path on the Kaiserstuhl, a ridge with views west into the Vosges Mountains (France) and east to the Black Forest.