Wandering and Walkabouts in Baden Baden

We are deep in the Black Forest in the resort town of Baden Baden, which means Bath Bath. Baden Baden is famous for two things – its over-the-top casino, and its baths. Very, very wealthy people flock here for both. And Germans who have minor and major ailments come here, too, for the "kur."

We learned that the German health care system is very generous (and government–run with a private option, also, that they are trying to eliminate.) Anyway, in the recent past, if someone injured their leg or had an ailment of some type, or even just a headache, they could go to their doctor and say, "I need to go to a spa to heal my leg” or “My head is really bothering me, I need to go to the baths” or even “I need some mental health time” and the doctor would write them a prescription to go to a spa, maybe even for a month! Then they would come to Baden Baden. Well, the government has gotten wiser and now has more restrictions for spa referrals. But we saw several people in town today walking around with bandages on their ankles or knees or using walking crutches. And there are lots of hotels to accommodate these ailing people.

We toured the Kurhaus Casino first and it looks like something that should be in a James Bond movie, and maybe has been.  It is not nearly as large as a Las Vegas casino, but is way more luxurious. One of the rooms has red silk walls that cost 2.2 million Euros, which I believe is around 3 million U.S. dollars. All of the rooms are full of expensive porcelain pieces, gold mirrors and fixtures, chandeliers, etc.  The casino opens at 2 pm and has a dress code – jacket and dress shoes for men – so none of us went back when it opened. Not that we could afford the high stakes, anyway, but it would be neat to watch some high rollers, if they were there.

Instead, we went on an interesting side trip suggested by our guide, Tara. We rode a funicular up to the top of the mountain where we had an amazing view of Baden Baden. Then we hiked down for an hour and a half to the funicular station. The view of the Black Forest mountains and valley from the top was gorgeous.

A typical trail sign, a bit confusing, especially in German. We got lost a little bit here, going the wrong way, but backtracked and found our way down.

In this picture, Tom and the men in our group gathered around the German language bus station board trying to figure out when the next bus was coming to pick us up and take us back to town.

Then Tom and I went to Freidrichsbad – the famous bath house. There are two here – one you wear bathing suits and basically sit by and swim in hot pools. The other is nude – guess which one we did? Yep, the nude one.  It was really interesting…a three hour process, segregated except for one pool area, if you choose to go there.

First, imagine being silent with only your thoughts to occupy you for three hours, the duration of the treatment. I have no problem with that but I knew before we went in it would be a challenge for Tom. He seemed to enjoy it, though. It was wonderful to just let our minds wander for three hours after the hectic pace we've been on the past couple of weeks. There are 17 parts to the spa experience if you do everything. We opted out of the crème massage (for time reasons and because Tom did not want another man “rubbing” him). I added the soap and brush scrub and it was wonderful.

After all the hot and cold soaking, showers, mineral waters, saunas, scrubbing and cleansing, you go to the “sleep” room where they wrap you up in a towel like a cocoon so you can sleep for 30 minutes. Then you go to the reading room and have tea for 30 minutes. All the reading material was in German so we both dozed in that area, too. The whole process was so refreshing and relaxing. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner of soup and salad, wine and beer afterwards, around 10 pm – late dining just like the Europeans. And we are waiting for the magical "kur" to our various middle-age ailments. J

Our Baden Baden hotel is very luxurious, too, a very large room with chandeliers, silk wall coverings and an elegant bathroom with a bidet, which I have not used. We all had a good laugh about the name of the hotel when we arrived, though. It’s called the Bad Hotel. Seriously. J YOLO!!