Christmas Eve is kind of a big deal in Germany; think Chinese New Year in Singapore when everyone goes visiting and it just becomes a ghost town. Anyone who visits Germany during Christmas season will face difficulties planning for activities on Christmas Eve; 90% of shops, restaurants and attractions will be closed by noon when everyone heads home to spend the rest of the day with their families. It was especially difficult since Freiburg was a small town but a handful of attractions were still open; the Deutsches Uhrenmuseum, Tier-Natur-Erlebnispark Mundenhof and Erlebniswelt Schlossberg.
On Day 8 we did some last minute shopping in Freiburg and took a leisurely walk to the Talstation of the Schlossberg-bahn. To get to the Bergstation we can either take the automatic tram up or a long hike; we decided on the former as we didn’t want to be too ambitious. From the Bergstation, we took a short hike further up to the Schlossberg-Turm to take in some panoramic views of Freiburg. Be warned: the tower may look small but it’s pretty tall and it gets scarily windy on the top!
After the hike, we went back to the hotel and had lunch at a döner restaurant near our hotel, this was one of the few places that was going to be open on Christmas Eve! We spent the rest of the day relaxing in the hotel and waited excitedly for our overnight train to Berlin. Since the trip from Freiburg to Berlin will take around 8 hours, it was more time efficient to spend it on a sleeper train. The City Night Line (Sirius) leaves Freiburg Hbf at 9.58pm and will be scheduled to arrive in Berlin Hbf at 7.15am and it was our most expensive accommodation of our trip! We wanted to book the first class cabin initially as it came with a private bathroom but the Sparpreis tickets were released much later than the second class tickets; by then we had already booked the second class tickets. Darn it!
We were not mentally prepared for the size of the second class cabin since we only had pictures on the website as reference; it was so tiny that one of us had to wait outside the cabin while the other changed. Our luggage was too large to fit in the cabin, luckily the conductor kindly offered to lock them up in another empty cabin. The bed however, was surprisingly comfortable and the gentle movement of the train rocked us to sleep in no time. We enjoyed the train ride very much, although I can’t guarantee the same experience for someone who is much taller or bigger than us.
absolute honesty 