The Black Forest has become one of the Israelis’ favorite tourist destinations in recent years. These days the Germans are really facing an energy crisis and a climate crisis, which are breathing down the necks of the Europeans, the coming of the harsh winter that is expected in Europe after a complex winter in Australia and New Zealand.
After three years of Corona, in which the natural gem of the Black Forest remained desolate, the Germans decided to leverage their natural resources and invest significantly in winter tourism, which includes snow and quality of life with minimal energy consumption. In this framework, the tourist stays in one place that provides him with all his needs.
To deal with the energy crisis, the emphasis is on Japanese “forest bath” style tourism, where you go into the forest for a few hours in order to breathe and purify your soul. The idea is to enjoy healing with the help of nature and heal the body and mind with methods that originate from the forest and are based on natural remedies, which include plants, roots and flowers, on landscapes, on fresh air and on a minimum of industrialization.
According to reliable sources, even if unofficial, the German government has allocated no less than 40% of the tourism budget to promote sustainable tourism. The attempt to lure the Israeli tourist and draw him to this spot precisely in the winter, when it’s cold and snowing, the roads are blocked and all there is is the forest and nature, was a huge success for the Germans.
Post-corona tourism
We set out to experience “Forest Tourism”, which goes back to the origins and allows you to make do with what you have. And what there is, it turns out, is a lot. No more bling-bling, no more glittering Christmas decorated with travel from place to place, but a five-star experience, which includes a week in one place without moving while consuming what nature has to offer, but in style. And this nature has a lot to offer beyond a maddening view of mountains interspersed with rustic cabins, clouds that descend from the sky to the ground, wild nature that includes fresh air and vast areas where relatively few people roam.
The last figure is particularly relevant considering the fact that Germany is expected to face another severe corona wave. In the first period of the epidemic, they realized in the world of tourism that the city is more complex and dangerous in terms of the chance of getting infected and getting sick. The crowded and crowded public transportation, the cities that many residents, workers and tourists enter every day, the vehicles that do not contribute to the global warming situation and energy waste – all of these stand in contrast to the wide areas of the forest and the natural space. Even in the residential areas within the Black Forest, arrangements were made ahead of time to reduce the spread of the epidemic with automatic Alochgel stations, staff wearing masks at any given time and extreme care in proximity to food.
The Black Forest is in the southwestern tip of Germany in the state of Baden-Württemberg and borders Switzerland to the south and France (the Rhine River) to the west. Its length is 160 km, and its width is 30-60 km. Its mountains are of medium height, and the highest peak is Feldberg (“Field Mountain” in German). Beyond the fact that it is a rare piece of nature that seems to have not passed by time and is protected from industrialization, the Black Forest is economically important, since the trees in the place are the fir trees that are used as raw material. There is a small glass industry in the forest, watchmaking (with a museum that includes more than 8,000 items) and mainly tourism.
Between a spa and a park
This is a particularly romantic place and you can enjoy here the nature, the waterfalls, the small lakes, the picturesque villages and especially the perfect air. Medical tourism is developed in the region, and the pampering spa baths, which offer local treatments (for example in the city of Baden-Baden, most of which is devoted to spa tourism), are found under every fresh tree. Family tourism in the Black Forest is one of the most widespread in the world, so families of all ages can come and combine a spa vacation with a visit to the mighty Europa Park, which is also open during these days of winter and snow.
Befitting forest tourism, which combines FEEL GOOD with sustainability, and in which the German Ministry of Tourism invests, there are more than 350 spas and resorts in the area that focus on sustainability and use local medicines. They also pamper the guests with nature in all its glory, which includes many years of experience in local health. The level of hotels is one of the highest in the world, and includes five-star resorts with Michelin-starred restaurants. This is an area where there are about eight Michelin stars and three of them belong to the restaurant of the BAREISS resort, where they serve, among other things, dishes based on plants, flowers and even the meat of animals that the family members hunted in the forest.
Forellenhof Buhlbach – Hôtel Bareiss (צילום: BAREISS)Swimsuit in the snow
Hermann Bareiss, who was born here, is now considered the owner of one of the best hotels in Germany. His mother Hermin founded a small place 70 years ago. Her son turned it into a huge resort that is developing while maintaining a balance of sustainability, according to the German requirement, after purchasing most of the houses of his childhood village. The resort includes everything you need, so there is no need to go outside the village and there is no need to use vehicles.
We, for example, were picked up (and all the guests on site) by a private car from the Strasbourg train station for a drive into the forest through villages and relaxing landscapes. The resort itself is spread over most of the area and includes villas, huge apartments and smaller rooms for individuals, which are also pampering. Since we didn’t leave the site for a whole week, they prepared a pampering program for us from morning to evening about the purity of the forest and everything it has to offer. Everything is inside the resort and allows for a longer winter vacation – something that saved not only travel expenses, but even packing, because even though it snowed, we spent most of our stay there in swimwear.
The current and massage pool is under the sky. It is snowing on us, but we are warm and comfortable, because the pool is heated. There are 13 pools in the place, including a stream pool, a sea water pool, a natural pool that is cleaned thanks to the plants that grow in it, and a reflexology pool, like several hammam rooms with old fragrances brewed from flowers that grow in the forest. The spa is spread over two floors, and treatments are carried out with plants harvested from the forest with the help of special gloves that caress the skin. The children also receive spa treatments with hot chocolate cream that is applied to the body.
In order to reduce fuel consumption, they set up an avenue of shops inside the resort that turns into a huge Christmas market during Christmas. No more feet drowning in snow, cold and crowding. The market and traders come inside.
One of the things that is not missing here is good food. Some of the nine restaurants are hunters’ restaurants designed in the best tradition of the Black Forest. The flagship dish is a deer hunted by members of the BAREISS family, and it is served in a red wine sauce with currants from the forest and spetzle, the German doughy pasta. The fireplace restaurant is an elegant restaurant, and the dishes are designed and stylish and include trout fish from the trout farm built on site, delicate chestnut pumpkin soup, game meat dishes and Christmas desserts rich in chocolate and fruit.
A team of local chefs cooks, and the bakers in the kitchen prepare different types of pretzel at any time of the day. At 16:00 the guests are invited to coffee and tea accompanied by a variety of cakes, the queen of which is the black forest cake – a chocolate base, topped with whipped cream that simulates the snow falling on the tops of the trees and red cherries.
You can enjoy this vacation with children and even with babies without meeting them, because the resort includes a nursery, a children’s home and even a youth complex. Each baby and child is assigned a nanny who takes care of him from morning to early evening. The nannies take care of the children for creative activities, sports and games, and they go to the animal corner, ride ponies and play with rabbits and goats. The teenagers will enjoy a complex with pool tables, air hockey and X-BOX. In the meantime, the adults can move on foot, go hiking, ride bicycles or horses and even row a canoe while visiting natural landscapes for a longer time and in a more intensive way than traveling by car.
Three satellite complexes on the mountains in the depths of the forest belong to the resort, and all respect sustainability and nature. You can reach them by walking, horseback riding or by bicycle. The first is a hiking restaurant on a mountain in the forest, where you can stop in the middle of a hiking trip and eat dishes from the local German cuisine in an inn style.
The second is farm fresh trout fish that jump in the ponds in the compound inside the forest and come straight to the restaurant’s plates, such as Tart Blahavah, which is the local pizza and includes trout fish, grilled trout with stewed potatoes and a delicately flavored trout soup.
And the third is Morlokoff, a 300-year-old home of the local sorcerer and exorcist who concocted potions and medicines and was the village doctor. The place can be reached by a guided walk from the hotel, which takes an hour and a quarter, and hear about the fascinating life of the bees, which belong to the private hives on the spot. These bees provide honey with a special and different taste, since they grow in a forest with an intact ecological texture.
At the end of the visit, all guests are invited to coffee, tea or chocolate and a cake dinner, including plum cake, apple cake with fresh sour cream, local pastry made from Morlokoff’s garden plants and of course the famous Black Forest cake.
The picturesque lakes and rivers in the area allow you to travel, dream, relax and enjoy the view and the clear air. The walking routes are comfortable, and staying in a simple authentic rural environment as well as staying in a luxurious authentic rural environment allow a return to slow living, which in many ways symbolizes the modesty that characterizes the post-corona period. Nature, the forest and the vast area, which cause a feeling of spaciousness and breathing, enable a journey of discovering sustainability in a combination between protected nature, the restoration of an ancient charm and a vacation destination that helps protect global warming and the quality of the environment.
In a period dress and white robe
BAREISS Resort (on the website www.bareiss.com) includes 99 rooms in 40 different categories (230 beds, 250 staff members). Although it is a five-star resort, it is part of the hotel portfolio of the Relais & Châteaux guide and has a Michelin restaurant decorated with three stars, the guiding line in the design is the German village style.
The dresses worn by the local workers are the dirndls, period dresses of the region, with a white apron over them. The men in a colorful and original black forest suit. Time seems to have stood still, and the feeling is that there is always a little more than is needed, but not too much. A generous place in everything: colors, design, brightness, joy. The rooms themselves are apartments or family houses with a restrained and respectable layout.
The language of design and architecture in the place talks with the forest and its colors on the purity of green and red and is based on local materials, mainly wood from the forest itself. BAREISS Resort was designed by Hermann Bareiss. Although the best architects and designers in Europe were at his disposal, he was the one who sketched his vision on a sheet of paper and executed the design and textures of the carpets, curtains and bedspreads.
During the Christmas season each room has a decorated fir tree to bring the forest and holiday atmosphere into the room. The cost of accommodation at the place this season is about 600 euros for a family apartment as part of a culinary stay, which includes a buffet-style breakfast spread over several halls and a la carte dinners.