Bathing in Baden

One of the main things that we planned to do in our trip was to drive, and obviously not just along highways but also along some other more scenic routes. The Black Forest region of Germany is one of its most picturesque routes, obviously with a lot of trees but also beautiful scenery. It was quite a lovely drive and since it wasn’t yet summer and full tourist season, we pretty much had the roads to ourselves most of the time. Baden-Baden is one of the stops along the Black Forest route and we stopped by there to explore a little.

City of Baden-Baden

Baden-Baden actually means ‘baths’ in German so obviously one of the things we did was to visit one of its famous baths, the Caracalla Spa. The spa contains many pools of different temperatures, a sauna, steam room and you could also get a massage for an additional fee. It’s a bit like soaking in the hot springs of Japan or Taiwan but here, the pools are shared so everyone wears a swimsuit and the pools are a lot bigger. In the sauna though, even though it’s shared they go the Full Monty. We gave that a miss as we thought it would be too weird and sit amongst strangers of the opposite sex with our bits on display. Yes, the germans are very open about nakedness. Since it wasn’t yet peak tourist season, we had quite an enjoyable time going from pool to pool and just relaxing in the thermal spring waters. We also managed to get a massage (on a different day though as their system was screwed up and we couldn’t get one the day we went for the spa) which was rather good but a little weird at the same time. Again you go the Full Monty here, unlike massages in Singapore where they at least provide you with disposable underwear. The thermal spring water is also supposed to be beneficial for health if you drank it. After trying some, I say better to soak in it than to drink it :p

Pork knuckles, Bavarian sausages and a good beer

Spatzle (german noodles) with stewed beef and another good beer...

With the city tax we paid as tourists, we get a free tour of the city, BUT it was conducted in German so we gave up after about 15 minutes and decided to walk around it ourselves. We were lucky that the weather was good and the flowers were blooming. It seemed like everyone was out that day just enjoying the weather, all in all very lovely place to visit and just spend some time relaxing.

Beautiful blend of flora