The Lindens of the Kapellenweg

These two limes are the oldest protected trees in Freiburg, first on the city's Naturdenkmal register when it opened in 1954, and local tradition puts their planting in 1645, during the last years of the Thirty Years' War. They stand on the Lorettoberg beside the path to the Lorettokapelle, a chapel built in 1657 specifically to give thanks that the war was over. A pair of Sommerlinden, large-leaved limes, growing together beside a chapel raised for peace: the dates line up closely enough that the connection is hard to resist, even though no single source ties this exact pair to that exact chapel foundation. Take the 1645 figure as the tradition it is rather than a measurement. At roughly 380 years old they would have been young trees when Freiburg itself was still recovering from decades of war passing through the region. The path up to the chapel is open at all times, a twenty to twenty-five minute walk uphill from the Altstadt through Wiehre, and the pair still shades the last stretch of it.