Auggen & Freiburg

Auggen is a sleepy little commuter town which really only has houses, some factories and a tiny railway station (literally consisting of two bus shelters, a footbridge and a ticket machine!), but it also has a gorgeous little hotel run by a small team of staff, who pay massive attention to small details like fresh flowers on the breakfast tables. The hotel even has a small 'help yourself' bar, where they light a nice open fire every evening. Put your money in the dish and help yourself to a drink - very trusting, and it seems the system is rarely, if ever abused. Like being at home!

Here's Fred the Fiesta enjoying a little R&R in the car park with some German friends...

Another piece of attention to detail which fitted in with the huntin', shootin' and fishin' theme of the general area, was finding 2 stuffed hens sitting in a basket like they were sitting on newly laid eggs - just outside the lift on the floor where my room was...

The whole area seemed full of such oddities. On the first night, a little black and white cat that had been sitting on the stairs, decided to take a ride up to my floor in the lift with me, then got out and went back down the stairs again! Wasn't seen any more during my stay so hopefully the dear little thing isn't now stuffed and sitting on another floor of the hotel somewhere!

As mentioned in a previous post, one of only about 2 or 3 restaurants in this town was a meat restaurant (no veggies round here!) with walls covered in animal heads and stuffed small animals and birds. Animal lovers beware!

On the second morning, we went down to the little station to get the train to Freiburg. The station might be tiny but the train certainly wasn't! Many trains seem to be double decker jobs, with plenty of seats and very roomy and well appointed. We took the top deck. Here's a view looking down the train carriage...

And here's the train...

Freiburg is quite a large town, bombed flat in WWII, but rebuilt to a modern standard, taking care to reproduce some of the older buildings that had been lost. An example of this is right in the centre where there is a modern department store. You can go up to the restaurant at the top of the store, sit out on their roof terrace (for smokers ostensibly but commands nice views), and look out at the top of the cathedral...

Here's Freiburg's Gate (I'm not sure of the name) - popular with model railway enthusiasts it seems - the local model shops sold models of it and other local buildings for people to put on their layouts...

After a few hours in Freiburg, it was back to the station and back on the train. We were going to go to Tittensee, a few stops down the line, to have lunch. In the end, as it was quite a nice day we decided to stay on the train right to the end of the line - a place called Seebrugge. There actually wasn't much there, just the lake below, the station, and a cafe that turned out to be closed. Also a lot of taxis parked up. Obviously a place to go to get to other places. Pretty though.

 Here's the station...

 

So it was back on the train again and back to Tittensee for lunch. On the way back the train stopped at the delightfully named station below. I'm sure they've heard every joke imaginable!