Every design for Lahr/Schwarzwald

Only since 1978 has Lahr carried the Black Forest in its official name, Lahr/Schwarzwald, though in the local Low Alemannic dialect it has always simply been Lohr. The town lies on the western edge of the forest, where the Schutter valley opens out onto the Upper Rhine plain, and it is the second largest in the Ortenau after Offenburg.

Home here is a patchwork of places that grew together. Burgheim and Dinglingen long ago merged with the town, and villages such as Reichenbach, Kuhbach, Sulz and Hugsweier joined it in the 1970s, each keeping its own name and its own corners. The old town sits on the right bank of the river, around the Geroldsecker Tiefburg, the lowland castle better known as the Storchenturm, while the Stadtmuseum Tonofenfabrik keeps finds from the Roman settlement once uncovered near Dinglingen.

Follow the Schutter on the map and you trace a childhood: down from the hills through Reichenbach, past the old town, then north beyond Dinglingen, the same river every walk home seemed to follow.