Martin M. Miles' photos with the keyword: Black Forrest

The city of Freiburg was founded by the Dukes of Zaehringen in 1120. The town was located at a junction of old trade routes and already in 1200 the population had risen to 6000. This was, when under Bertold V the last duke of Zaehringen, the construction of the Freiburg Muenster cathedral began, replacing an older parish church. The blueprint of the church "Muenster Unserer Lieben Frau" was very ambitious, but Freiburg was a very prosperous place, as silver mining in the nearby Black Forrest was thriving. The building of the cathedral begun in the Romanesque style and was continued and completed 1513 for the most part as a Gothic cathedral. The cathedral is 116 meters long, 30 meters wide and the tower (seen here only under scaffolding) is 116 meters high. This tower (completed 1330) was one the highest in Germany during medieval times. The portal to the Nikolaus-chapel, part of the late romanesque transept has a couple of surprising carvings. Here is Alexander the Great going up to heaven in a basket, powered by two griffins. Alexander controls the griffins by holding up two roasted puppies on sticks.

The city of Freiburg was founded by the Dukes of Zaehringen in 1120. The town was located at a junction of old trade routes and already in 1200 the population had risen to 6000. This was, when under Bertold V the last duke of Zaehringen, the construction of the Freiburg Muenster cathedral began, replacing an older parish church. The blueprint of the church "Muenster Unserer Lieben Frau" was very ambitious, but Freiburg was a very prosperous place, as silver mining in the nearby Black Forrest was thriving. The building of the cathedral begun in the Romanesque style and was continued and completed 1513 for the most part as a Gothic cathedral. The cathedral is 116 meters long, 30 meters wide and the tower (seen here only under scaffolding) is 116 meters high. This tower (completed 1330) was one the highest in Germany during medieval times. The higher towers in Ulm, Cologne, Hamburg etc. were all completed within then 19th century. Freiburg Muenster is often been compared to Basel Muenster (60kms south), as "Basel III" is not much older. Colmar (45kms west) and Strasbourg (80kms northwest) were in a process of building large romanesque/gothic churches. Not mentioning Breisach, Rouffach, Schlettstadt...There was quite some competition. The market is still held around the cathedral. That has not changed since the early times.

As the legend says, that Saint Christopher was a giant, most sculptures or frescoes depicting him - are somehow oversized. This one is on the neo-gothic parish church St. Blasius in Glottertal.

Kloster Allerheiligen ("All Saints' Abbey") was a Premonstratensian monastery founded in 1192 by the regional nobilty. It had a long history as an abbey, even survived the Reformation, but in 1802 Margrave Karl Friedrich of Baden dissolved the abbey and took its possessions. All monks had to leave, and after a factory, that had been established here, failed, the whole complex fell into ruins and got sold as a quarry. Meanwhile, British aristocracy had invented tourism (via the more old fashioned "Grand Tour"), sailed the Rhine up and down and climbed onto swiss mountains. The Romantic Period started in Germany and painters like Caspar David Friedrich made "lonely ruins in fog" a theme of many works of art. Printer Karl Baedeker opened a publishing house in Koblenz. The title of the first bestseller he published was "Rheinreise von Mainz bis Köln" ("Travelling the Rhine from Mainz to Cologne"). From then on Mr. Baedecker focussed sucessfully on guidebooks. First tourists hiked up the valley to see the ruins and about 1840 a guesthouse was opened, to offer beer and limonade... In 1853 Mr. Baedecker himself visited the place - and wrote about the romantic ruins and the wonderful waterfalls nearby. In 1871 the guesthouse got rebuilt into a posh hotel. Samuel Langhorne Clemens (aka "Mark Twain"), traveling through Europe, probably read Baedecker´s guidebook and so visited the ruins in 1878. He wrote about it in "A Tramp Abroad" (part of this book is the essay "The Awful German Language"). Especially on a rainy day, the whole place seems a little forgotten again, but the guesthouse/ hotel where Mark Twain had a trout, still exists. He wrote "A big hotel crowds the ruins a little, now, and drives a brisk trade with summer tourists. We descended into the gorge and had a supper which would have been very satisfactory if the trout had not been boiled." www.gutenberg.org/files/119/119.txt

Kloster Allerheiligen ("All Saints' Abbey") was a Premonstratensian monastery founded in 1192 by the regional nobilty. It had a long history as an abbey, even survived the Reformation, but in 1802 Margrave Karl Friedrich of Baden dissolved the abbey and took its possessions. All monks had to leave, and after a factory, that had been established here, failed, the whole complex fell into ruins and got sold as a quarry. Meanwhile, British aristocracy had invented tourism, sailed the Rhine up and down and climbed onto swiss mountains. The Romantic Period started in Germany and painters like Caspar David Friedrich made "lonely ruins in fog" a theme of many works of art. Printer Karl Baedeker opened a publishing house in Koblenz. The title of his first bestseller was "Rheinreise von Mainz bis Koeln" ("Travelling the Rhine from Mainz to Cologne"). From then on Mr. Baedecker focussed very sucessfully on guidebooks. First tourists hiked up the valley to see the ruins and about 1840 a guesthouse was opened, to offer beer and limonade... In 1853 Mr. Baedecker himself visited the place - and wrote about the romantic ruins and the wonderful waterfalls nearby. In 1871 the guesthouse got rebuilt into a posh hotel. Samuel Langhorne Clemens (aka "Mark Twain"), traveling through Europe, probably read Baedecker´s guidebook and so visited the ruins in 1878. He wrote about it in "A Tramp Abroad" (part of this book is the essay "The Awful German Language"). Today the place seems a little forgotten again, though as in so many ruins and as in front of so many Romanesque churches - during summer there is a stage here.

The city of Freiburg was founded by the Dukes of Zaehringen in 1120. The town was located at a junction of old trade routes and already in 1200 the population had risen to 6000. This was, when under Bertold V the last duke of Zaehringen, the construction of the Freiburg Muenster cathedral began, replacing an older parish church. The blueprint of the church "Muenster Unserer Lieben Frau" was very ambitious, but Freiburg was a very prosperous place, as silver mining in the nearby Black Forrest was thriving. The building of the cathedral begun in the Romanesque style and was continued and completed 1513 for the most part as a Gothic cathedral. The cathedral is 116 meters long, 30 meters wide and the tower (seen here only under scaffolding) is 116 meters high. This tower (completed 1330) was one the highest in Germany during medieval times. Breastfeeding is not often seen in medieval cathedrals. To my great surprise I found it twice in Freiburg Muenster. You may remember the romanesque carving of a breastfeeding mermaid on the right arm of the transsept. Here now is a monkey mum suckling twins. Probably a single mother! Just over the little family Saint Peter´s large toes can be seen.

The city of Freiburg was founded by the Dukes of Zaehringen in 1120. The town was located at a junction of old trade routes and already in 1200 the population had risen to 6000. This was, when under Bertold V the last duke of Zaehringen, the construction of the Freiburg Muenster cathedral began, replacing an older parish church. The blueprint of the church "Muenster Unserer Lieben Frau" was very ambitious, but Freiburg was a very prosperous place, as silver mining in the nearby Black Forrest was thriving. The building of the cathedral begun in the Romanesque style and was continued and completed 1513 for the most part as a Gothic cathedral. The cathedral is 116 meters long, 30 meters wide and the tower (seen here only under scaffolding) is 116 meters high. This tower (completed 1330) was one the highest in Germany during medieval times. The portal to the Nikolaus-chapel, part of the late romanesque transept has a couple of surprising carvings. Here are two mermaids (fish-sirens). The standing left one only has one tail, while the sitting right one has two tails. Even more unusual is, that both have human legs - and the right one is breast feeding a baby. This baby has a fish-tail as well - and holds a large bird.