Brigach and Breg bring the Danube to way.

 

The Danube, the second longest river in Europe, has its source in the Black Forest. But exactly where it is located is not entirely undisputed. In Donaueschingen, for example, there is a source of the Danube, which is located in the Fürstenberg Palace Garden. It is set like a round fountain and elaborately decorated.

 

However, a proverb knows: "Brigach and Breg bring the Danube to way." Brigach and Breg are two small rivers that join in the Donaueschingen district. From the point of their confluence, the Danube begins. In fact, the water that comes from the source of the Danube in the castle garden also flows underground as a so-called Danube brook into the Brigach, so it does not reach the beginning of the Danube by a direct route. Apart from that, the Brigach and the Breg each contain considerably more water than the Danube brook.

 

The Brigach rises at 925 meters above sea level near St. Georgen, namely at the Hirzbauernhof farm. It is 40 kilometers long. The Breg, the longer of the two rivers at 46 kilometers, begins at the Martinskapelle chapel not far from the town of Furtwangen, with its source at 1,078 meters above sea level. At the confluence of the two, the Black Forest merges into the high plateau of the Baar, where the young Danube flows off to the east. In its further course, it flows for 2,857 kilometers through European metropolises such as Vienna, Budapest and Belgrade, before it flows from the Black Forest into the Black Sea.

 

But the "black" in the names "Black Forest" and "Black Sea" is not the only correspondence in name between the beginning and the end of the Danube. As already mentioned, one of its headwaters begins at St. Georgen, while on the Black Sea coast the southernmost arm of the Danube delta is called St. George's Arm. It takes its name from a small place called Sfântu Gheorghe, which is the Romanian spelling for "Saint George". Thereby, the place is located at the outflow of the Danube arm into the sea. Because of this, Sfântu Gheorghe can be reached only by boat.

 

To make the competition among the sources to the point, the source of the river Inn has also been called the actual source of the Danube, which is due to the fact that it is higher than those of Brigach and Breg. However, when it meets the Danube, the Inn is shorter than the latter and is thus considered its tributary.

 

In any case, the Romans considered the Danube to be under the protection of the source goddess Abnoba, after whom they also named the Black Forest, namely "Abnoba mons", which, however, was not the only Latin name for the low mountain range.

 

Even if the source of the Danube in Donaueschingen is not the actual source of the Danube according to common understanding, it is still worth a visit. In its present form by Adolf Weinbrenner, it has existed since 1828. The decorations on its enclosure are by the artist Franz Xaver Reich, who also created a sculpture that can be seen here. It bears the title "The young Danube in the bosom of the Baar". Another work of art is by Adolf Heer and shows the mother Baar with her daughter Danube. You can also visit the Fürstenberg castle.