My wife and I are planning on spending 3-4 days in the Black Forest this summer. We're trying to figure out the best place to stay that will allow us to see the clock museum, the open air museum, Baden-Baden, Calw, and any other sites we happen to get inspired to visit. Obviously, the harder it is to get around, the less we're going to do. So, we're looking for a town and a hotel to use as our base in the Schwarzwald. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Black Forest
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Freiburg is a charming town to use as a base. From Freiburg, you can take the A5 to Baden Baden. It's also close to Staufen, which is my favorite charming little town near the Black Forest. There's a hotel there that claims room 15 was the room from which Mephistopheles took Faust to hell.
I also remember a great train ride through wonderful scenery to Titisee, but I'm a little unclear on where we started. I think it was probably from Freiburg.
Furtwangen (clock museum) can be reached by bus from the Triberg train station:
http://www.v-s-b.de/fahrplan/pdf/7270.pdf
So maybe Triberg, high in the BF on the scenic Black Forest railway line, is a good town to base in. This rail line stretches from Offenburg (not far from Baden Baden) in the northwest to Donaueschingen in the southeast and provides good train access to the other places you mention.
http://www.black-forest-travel.com/places-of-interest/black-forest-railway.html
From Triberg, the Vogtsbauernhof museum would be accessible via Hausach (another BF railway town which is also the rail junction town for trains to Schiltach, a beautiful place, and north beyond Schiltach to Calw. The problem with Triberg is that if you're staying in the town proper, it's a long hilly walk to the station. But you could look at some other towns that lie on the Black Forest railway line too.
Gengenbach, another BF railway town near Offenburg, is a gorgeous old walled town that would put you closer to Freiburg and Baden Baden but a bit further from Furtwangen.
Hausach itself might be ideal for your outings, though I like it somewhat less than the neighboring town of Haslach.
Gengenbach, Hausach, Haslach, and Triberg belong to the Konus network, and rail and bus travel is free with the Konus card you get from any host or innkeeper; not so from Freiburg:
http://www.blackforest-tourism.com/konus
Freiburg would also make for extra long daytrips to the places you're interested in seeing (except maybe Baden-Baden.)
I suggest you play with the itinerary schedule to see how long trips are exactly between possible base towns and destinations:
http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en
Here's a map of the BF railway area and towns:
http://www.rad-gleis.de/epo1/schwbjetzt.gif
(Furtwangen is south of Triberg.)