THE WESTWEG
THROUGH GERMANY’S BLACK FOREST
by Kat Morgenstern
2 POLICE SQUARE, MILNTHORPE, CUMBRIA LA7 7PY
About the Author
Born and raised in Berlin, Germany, Kat Morgenstern discovered her passion for travel early on. At the tender age of 18, she left Germany to begin a journey that has taken her halfway around the world and is still in progress today. Professionally, Kat is a grassroots herbalist, ethnobotanist, writer and ecotravel professional. She is the founder and director of Sacred Earth, a network and educational resource for ‘plant people’ of all species, and of Sacred Earth Travel, a dedicated online ecotravel consultancy.
Having spent most of her adult life in the UK, the US and France, Kat currently makes her home in Germany’s southern Black Forest, where she roams the hills and forests and has been surprised to find not only rewarding vistas and a great variety of ecosystems, but an innovative model of sustainable tourism development.
Other Cicerone guides by the author
Hiking and Biking in the Black Forest
© Kat Morgenstern 2016
First edition 2016
ISBN-13: 978 1 85284 775 3
Printed by KHL Printing, Singapore
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Contains OpenStreetMap.org data © OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA. NASA relief data courtesy of ESRI.
All photographs are by the author unless otherwise stated.
Updates to this guide
While every effort is made by our authors to ensure the accuracy of guidebooks as they go to print, changes can occur during the lifetime of an edition. Any updates that we know of for this guide will be on the Cicerone website (www.cicerone.co.uk/775/updates), so please check before planning your trip. We also advise that you check information about such things as transport, accommodation and shops locally. Even rights of way can be altered over time.
The route maps in this guide are derived from publicly available data, databases and crowd-sourced data. As such they have not been through the detailed checking procedures that would generally be applied to a published map from an official mapping agency, although naturally we have reviewed them closely in the light of local knowledge as part of the preparation of this guide.
We are always grateful for information about any discrepancies between a guidebook and the facts on the ground, sent by email to [email protected] or by post to Cicerone, 2 Police Square, Milnthorpe LA7 7PY, United Kingdom.
Acknowledgements
First of all I would like to thank the founding fathers of the Schwarzwaldverein, those early pioneers who recognised the value of their heritage and put so much effort into preserving it for future generations. Without their vision the Westweg would never have come to be – nor given rise to what is now an excellent and well-maintained trail network that comprises some 23,000km. In particular I would like to thank Herrn Patrick Schenk (Wegereferent), who has been most patient, generous and helpful in answering my many questions about the Westweg.
I would also like to thank Frau Gaby Baur and Frau Conni Karcher of Schwarzwald Tourismus for their kind support during the research phase of this project.
My heartfelt thanks also go to the tireless and hardworking people at Cicerone, foremost among them Lois Sparling, who never seems to sleep and is always so quick to assist and respond to my questions. My deepest gratitude, however, goes to Jonathan and Lesley Williams, for their encouragement and their belief in me. Thank you for your kindness, for taking this project on and for your wonderful company along a little part of the way.
Last, but by no means least, I would like to express my gratitude to my husband, Tino Gonzales, whose love and support is a constant source of inspiration to me. Thank you all for being part of my path!
Front cover: High above the Murg Valley in the northern Black Forest (Stage 2)
CONTENTS
