For Your Consideration: Freiburg Um Breisgau

This one is gonna be hard to beat

When my friends and I hired a tour company for our Irish cycling trip last spring, we were assigned to Wilma, and imagined a young Irish lass in a cable knit sweater. We made Flintstone jokes as her emails about itinerary passed between us.

When Wilma delivered the bikes to us, she turned out to be “Vilma,” a very helpful middle-aged German woman from the Black Forest region. While we were chatting over coffee before starting the ride, I decided to ask her about the one place near the Black Forest I knew. “Should I retire to Freiburg?”

She looked at me like a cult member who had just heard the magic words. “Oh My God, Yes!” She said. You could see the exclamation point floating in the air. She went on to heap so much praise on Freiburg that I’m still not sure why she lives in Ireland.

I first noticed Freiburg im Breisgau when I had a renewable energy writing gig and it came up in my research a bunch of times. Known as Europe’s solar city, its showpiece is Vauban, a district that is almost wholly energy-self-sufficient. Freiburg’s large university is a leader in renewable energy research. Interesting, but not the kind of profile that would drive you to relocate there. But what I read made me do more research, and everything I saw, I liked.

What’s a Freiburg?

Freiburg doesn’t really enter the American consciousness much. A smallish city tucked on the southwest edge of the Black Forest, Americans know it for its university or its futbol team if they know it at all. Germans consider it for its abundant sunshine and excellent red wine—both rarities in that country.

If it’s not already clear, I’m not interested in retiring to a place where everyone else is retired. But if Freiburg wasn’t a hotbed of green tech innovation and research, it might have been one of Germany’s most popular retirement destinations. Everything we want is in close proximity.

There are several fine vineyards just a hike from the city center. Also, the mountains of the Black Forest are a twenty-minute walk from the Altstadt. If those mountains are too soft and green, the spiky, snowy Alps are a short Swiss-train ride away. If you are looking for the arts, Basel is a 40-minute train ride away. Hell, it takes me more than 40 minutes to ride MARTA to the High Museum. Zurich, and its international airport, is a quick two-hour ride.

Okay, but enough about what’s around Freiburg. What’s in Freiburg?

They do this every day.

The city’s Altstadt is outstanding and vibrant, anchored by the 800-year-old Freiburger Münster Cathedral. A daily Munstermarkt is held in the Platz, filled with fresh local produce and local street food. There’s a vital music and arts scene in the city, driven by over 30,000 university students. The university draws a large English-speaking community as well.

A central part of the city is the Schlossberg, a forested hill adjacent to the Altstadt. Over the millennia, it’s hosted castles and fortifications, but now it has an excellent restaurant, a beer garden, and music venues. There are lots of ruins and historical markers as well as a new observation tower with fantastic views. There’s lots of hiking trails as well.

Only a city that’s serious about biking builds a bike parking garage like this.

The city has built a lot of infrastructure to promote walking and cycling and cars are discouraged in much of the city.

Food? Multiple Michelin stars in several high-end spots along with high standards in the everyday wine bars and small pubs.

Cost of living? 16.4% less than Atlanta. Housing can be a bit of a challenge, but still cheaper than Atlanta.

So let’s take a look at the numbers:

Overall grade: 4.6

That very high score makes Freiburg the new leader by a considerable margin.

Seriously, I was tempted not to publish this post lest it drive too much interest in the place and drive up costs. One of the main challenges of this project is finding a place that would be great to settle down in, not just visit. I want to know what it’s like to buy groceries and deal with the day-to-day.

Freiburg looks like it has one of the best lifestyles in Germany—sunny, engaged, beautiful, and cultural, all with the best of the natural landscape at its door.

Song of the Week

The band Hem announced that they are re-releasing their debut album, Rabbit Songs, in the coming days. They were a favorite of mine when they were active a couple of decades ago, and I’m hopeful this means they’re working on something new.
This instrumental cut, The Burnt-Over District, is pivotal for me. Around the time it came out, I was publishing my audio literary magazine, Verb. I loved the cut and asked the band for permission to include it as an interlude between stories, and they approved.
But the name intrigued me. “Burnt-Over District” is such an odd phrase. What the hell is a burnt-over district?
It turns out to be a name for Western and Central New York, inspired by the region’s early 19th-century religious radicalism. Although I grew up in the heart of that region, I knew nothing of the name or that history. It led me to research the place where I was born. I went down a deep rabbit hole that taught me what a strange and remarkable place I was born to. I couldn’t stop, and ten or so years later, I published a novel, The Hidden Light of Northern Fires, rooted in that research. So this song changed my life.