The Black Forest is a mountainous region in southwest Germany, bordering France. Known for its dense, evergreen forests and picturesque villages, it is often associated with the Brothers Grimm fairy tales. It's renowned for its spas and the cuckoo clocks produced in the region since the 1700s. The region’s largest town, Freiburg, is filled with Gothic buildings and surrounded by vineyards. Few holiday regions are as diverse as the Black Forest. Its 11,400 square kilometers in the south-west of Germany are home to a rapidly changing landscape, with forests in the north, the less dense central Black Forest, and the mountainous south that leads down to the Rhine.

Black Forest visitors will find rich and varied landscapes, a diverse selection of health and spa resorts, delicious regional food, cultural and architectural treasures, especially in local cities, living regional traditions and a big variety of country sports such as hiking, Nordic walking, mountain biking and cycling, horse riding and golf. The area is also excellent for families, with special facilities for younger guests in all categories of accommodation.

Freiburg im Breisgau, a vibrant university city in southwest Germany’s Black Forest, is known for its temperate climate and reconstructed medieval old town, crisscrossed by picturesque brooks (bächle). With a dramatic 116m spire, the Gothic cathedral Freiburg Minster towers over the central square Münsterplatz. Situated on the Rhineland Plain between the Black Forest, the Vosges mountains and the Palatinate Forest, Karlsruhe is a hub of science and technology, Germany's online capital and the home of the Federal Court of Justice. Baden-Baden is a spa town in southwestern Germany’s Black Forest, near the border with France. Its thermal baths led to fame as a fashionable 19th-century resort. Alongside the Oos River, park-lined Lichtentaler Allee is the town’s central promenade.