By The River

This photo of the war damage around the Freiburg cathedral after the bombing raid of Nov. 27, 1944, offers a number of lessons. The first is that this is the sort of blowback a country risks if it blindly follows a leader, as Germans did Hitler in the 1930s. The second is that not every catastrophe is permanent. There can be recovery and renewal. Virtually everything you see in this photo has been rebuilt. The plaza around the cathedral this morning was filled with produce vendors selling the new crop of white asparagus. School groups climbed the 209 steps to the top of the cathedral (called a Münster in German) for the spectacular views. People of all ages ate ice cream at the sidewalk cafes and sipped espresso coffee. The sun was shining.

Today, Freiburg is a highly desirable place to live, with housing prices second only to Munich as a result. Some 25,000 of the city's 200,000 residents are students at the university. They come and often don't want to leave. Freiburg is a couple of miles from the Rhine River and France, and barely 20 miles from Switzerland. It backs up against the hills of the Black Forest with its myriad hiking trails. The downtown is thriving, although that is not as unusual in German cities as it is in the U.S. Much of the old city around the cathedral is a pedestrian mall or nearly so. Cars are not unknown, but there are few places to park. Bicycles are everywhere. It dawned on me today that I rarely, if ever, saw a German wearing a bicycle helmet. I'll have to find out why.