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Geo: 48.7598, 8.23979
Out the door early and on the bus. We sounded like a suitcase army when we all rolled out of the courtyard. The drive wasn't very picturesque because even though we were driving through the Rhineland, we were on the autobahn in an industrial(ish) area. We had one stop for bathrooms and snacks (during which John got a dark chocolate Bounty, I got a Kinder Bueno, and Daniela got Kinder chocolate for everyone), and then we arrived in Baden-Baden.
Baden-Baden is a spa town that enjoyed a fine reputation amongst royalty and the aristocracy of Europe in the 18th century. The town is still popular. How popular? Here's Rick: "Hoteliers in typical convention towns expect that 85 percent of their guests will need single rooms and 15 percent will need doubles. As spouses insist on coming to conventions held in Baden-Baden, hoteliers here flip-flop those figures, anticipating that 85 percent of the demand will be for doubles."
Our first stop was the beautiful casino built in the 1850s. We had a short guided tour of the lush, elegant rooms and were shown how to play French roulette. The bathrooms were fancy too!
We walked into the main part of town, which is
really lovely and looks sort of Parisian. Lots of expensive, exclusive shops and well-dressed people, but it doesn't feel snobbish. Lunch was on our own, so John and I ate outside at Laterne. I had Wurstsalat mit Kaesestreifen und Brot (sausage-and-cheese salad with bread), and John had … well, I don't remember the German for it because it was at least 17 letters long, but in English it was roasted sausages and sauerkraut. A pilsner and a Radler completed the picture. The restaurant turned out to be popular, as two other couples and the father-daughter-friend combo also ate there.
Walked around a bit and then met the group again so we could walk back to the bus and claim our bags. Our hotel is the Bad Hotel zum Hirsch (“Bad,” of course, meaning “bath”; it's not a critical judgment of the hotel …. That would be really bad for business, no?), and we are in room 412 on what we would call the 5th floor. But there's an elevator! Huzzah! Anyway, our room is huge. There's a foyer with a large wardrobe, and the main room has a seating area, the bed, two closets, a desk and a small console that
has a mini-fridge. It's big enough that we could probably choreograph a dance routine in here. And the bathroom is big too, with a soaking tub and a bidet (yay, a bidet!) and two sinks. Very swish.
John and I rested for a little bit and then went to the Friedrichsbad baths. There has been a thermal bath in this area since the Romans, and this particular bath was built in grand style in 1877. There is a grand staircase – something you would expect to see a Givenchy-clad Audrey Hepburn descending – that leads up to the baths. The whole place is decorated with columns, bas-reliefs, and tiles depicting herons and flowers and tropical scenes. Again, very swish.
Today was a separate bathing day, meaning that the sexes were divided throughout most of the bathing process. Usually, there is mixed bathing. The main thing is: it's all naked all the time. Europeans have a very different attitude toward nudity than Americans do. Daniela explained that for them, it's just a body, and they don't associate nudity with sex. And everyone does the baths: young, old, large, small. It's supremely egalitarian.
I went into my side and was instantly confused by the
Our lovely room
Room 412, Bad Hotel zum Hirschchanging cubicles. The attendant laughed and laughed, but it was very good-natured so I couldn't take offense or feel intimidated. After shedding all my clothes and putting them in a locker, I started the 17-step bathing process. First, a shower. Then a sauna followed by a hotter sauna. Very relaxing, and the nudity thing was almost instantly a non-issue. Then another shower and then a soap-and-brush massage by an attendant (John got one too; we paid extra for them). It's unusual to have someone soaping you up and scrubbing you with a brush, but it was actually relaxing and invigorating at the same time. When she was finished, she gave me a slap on the rear to let me know. Then another shower (to wash off all the soap) and a stay in a steam bath. It was so hot in there that I felt like I couldn't breathe. My eyes fogged up.
Into a warm pool and then … I wasn't going to do the next part, but I was able to see it through the door and saw John walk in. Under a richly decorated dome there is the mixed-gender royal pool. First, however, you must sit in
Yay, a bidet!
No, I didn't use it. a smaller pool, which we did, and then you plunge into the royal pool, which turns out to be startlingly cold. So, yes, I soaked naked with strange naked men. But honestly, there's a point where you just don't care anymore because all you want to do is be in the water and relax.
A different pool followed (thermotherapeutic, or something like that) and then a brief walk through an ice cold tub. Holy cow, was it cold! The idea, though, is that you're in it so briefly that it only cools the surface of your skin and doesn't really make you cold. And that's what it did. You can quit the process at that point, or you can rub lotion all over yourself and then be swaddled in blankets in a darkened room where you can sleep. I did doze off. Oops. The process ends with a short stay in the reading room, still swathed in a large bath sheet, where you can read a magazine and have some tea. Then you finally surrender the bath sheet and return to your locker to put on your nasty, dirty clothes.
It was just bliss!
Met John outside (he had finished about 10 minutes before I did) and we walked back to our hotel via a shop that proved good for a little Christmas shopping. Had a dinner of apples, yogurt (hazelnut for me, banana-apple for John), and paprika-flavored chips in our room.
It's only 9:30, but John is dead to the world next to me, even though the street outside is noisy. John was actually a little better today, and hopefully the baths leached all the yucky stuff out of him.
It's too bad we're only here for one night. I would totally do the baths again. Plus, I wanted to stroll down the Lichentaler Allee, and John wanted to go to the casino to gamble. C'est la vie!
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Mom
non-member comment
It was relaxing just reading about the bath. I need a nap now!