Germany's sunniest city — Black Forest gateway with a Gothic minster and Bächle streams
Freiburg is Germany's sunniest large city, receiving more sunshine hours per year than any rival, which is perhaps why it became one of the world's pioneers of solar energy. The medieval Münster cathedral towers over the central market square; the Bächle — shallow stone water channels running through the old city streets — are a medieval firefighting system still flowing today. Freiburg sits at the foot of the Schwarzwald (Black Forest) and is the gateway to Feldberg, the highest peak in Germany outside the Alps.
Freiburg was founded in 1120 by the Dukes of Zähringen as a planned market town — one of the first true town foundations in the German-speaking world. The Münster, begun around 1200, took over 300 years to complete and has what art historian Jacob Burckhardt called the most beautiful tower in Christendom. The city joined the Habsburg domains in 1368 and remained Austrian for centuries — its grid plan and the Bächle channels are a Zähringen original. WWII bombing destroyed much of the old city in November 1944; the Münster somehow survived intact.