The Black Forest features in the childhood memories of hundreds of thousands of Germans as the place where they first strapped those long slidey things to their feet. There are at least a dozen mini ski resorts scattered through the mountains, ranging from Vogelskopf (one lift and a couple of pistes), to the slopes of Feldberg with 50km of downhill.  Most have a mixture of cross-country routes and pisted slopes, and they’re all within an hour’s drive of key airports like Freiburg, Basel (Switzerland), and Strasbourg (France). Each has a different, hand-crafted flavour, unlike the mass skiing destinations up in the Alps.

Those Alpine ski destinations have significant drawbacks which don’t necessarily feature in the brochures.  By committing yourself to a holiday up amongst Europe’s highest peaks, you are usually incarcerating yourself in a purpose-built (ie ugly) community where skiing is practically the only occupation on offer, and where the price of everything is suitably inflated. What happens if you don’t like it? You get tired of it? Or one of you gets injured? Too bad. You’re stuck in your mountain fastness for a week, and you’ll just have to grin and bear it, and watch others having fun while your cash drains away.

Feldberg is the main downhill resort

Not so in the Black Forest. Here the ski resorts are good value (the ADAC found that prices can be up to 50 percent cheaper than in the Alps) easy to drive to, and uncrowded. The region’s lower altitude (highest point just 1,493 metres, compared to Alpine resorts which start at 2,000 metres plus) will ensure that the temperature is warmer, although that can mean a shortage of snow. It is a destination for shorter stays and last-minute decisions, and for people who want to mix skiing with other activities.

The Feldberg mountain hosts the main resort, with 28 lifts and a World Cup run. A lift pass here is €28 a day (expect to pay at least €10 more in the Alps), and at the weekends it can get busy with groups of students and young adults, doing skiing on the cheap. There’s bunkhouse style accommodation for the groups, but for the most part skiers stay in typically handsome Black Forest farmhouse and guest house accommodation, where prices are unlikely to be more than €30 per person, B&B.

Within easy reach are the airport towns, Basel, Freiburg and Strasbourg, each with good stuff to see. Then there’s Donaueschingen, the pretty Black Forest village at the start of the Danube. Stuttgart, home to Mercedes Benz and Porsche. The Hohenzollern castles at Hechingen and Sigmaringen, and the cuckoo clock industry around Furtwangen. There’s plenty to do.

If you prefer your skiing to be more demanding, but still German, see our page on Germany’s Alpine resorts. And there are other ski destinations further north at Sauerland, in the Harz Mountains and over in the Ore Mountains and in Thuringia.

Official Black Forest wintersports site

It is a bit of a misnomer, the Black Forest, because it is neither black, even barely dark green, and not a lot of it is forest, at least compared to how it used to be. It’s a region of relatively low-lying, low-slung tree-covered mountains which gets a fair bit of snow in winter, and a fair bit of sun in summer. Its topography means that it has managed to avoid over-industrialisation, and to keep its crafts, costumes and traditions relatively intact, in part helped to do so by the tourist market.

It covers a mountainous part of Baden-Württenberg 200km long and 60km wide which runs close to the borders with France and Switzerland (and is therefore particularly attractive tourist destination for the Swiss and the French, too). The Romans were the first to refer to the region’s then dark and dense forest as ‘Silva Nigra’ (black forest), although deforestation, agriculture and mild urbanisation have thinned out the woods a lot since.

Famous for ham, for gateau, and for cuckoo clocks

The northern part, south of the spa resort of Baden-Baden, consists of high plateaus (usually between 800 and 1,000 metres), while the highest mountains are in the southern part, rising to the Feldberg at 1,493 metres. There are mineral spas and lakes regularly distributed at various levels, of which the most popular is the attractive-sounding Lake Titisee.

Famous for ham, for gateau, and for cuckoo clocks, it’s a region of striking scenery where the farmhouses are very handsomely maintained, villages are splendidly neat, old and clean, and traditional costumes are widely displayed. There’s a bit of skiing in winter, and lots of excellent driving, walking or hiking trails in the hills during spring and summer. Most trails are well supplied with places to rest and refresh, all in the name of good health. So what’s not to like? Well, some Germanophiles find it simply too popular, because the Black Forest is the British coach tour destination par excellence.

It is easy enough to avoid the crowds. Most tours schedule some of their journey along the Black Forest High Road (Schwarzwaldhochstrasse), which runs between Baden-Baden in the north and Freudenstadt in the south. There are magnificent views of the Black Forest valleys, the Rhine Valley and Alsace and the Vosges Mountains along the entire route.

But you can get equally good views on foot, for the region is criss-crossed by well-signposted trails that allow walkers to reach areas and vistas often inaccessible by car, including castle ruins and waterfalls. Of the long-distance hiking trails, the most celebrated is the Westweg, running the length of the forest from Pforzheim to Basel via Mummelsee, Hausach, Titisee and Feldbach. It covers 280km, and makes for a fine fortnight’s walk for a moderately fit person.

If you’d rather have your forest free of Brits, however, then consider the Bavarian Forest, which is almost as big, and in the same climactic zone, but this time over on Germany’s eastern border, next to the Czech Republic.

Black Forest Tourism.

For airline tickets to Black Forest gateways (ie Stuttgart, Freiburg, Strasbourg, Basel) go to www.flighthub.com