Day 10, 15 May – transit, Baden-Baden

Today was another transit day. Our plan was to drive country roads from our hotel in Auderath down to the Black Forest town of Baden-Baden. The weather wasn’t terrible, but all that means this trip is that it didn’t look like rain was imminent. We said our goodbyes to the other guests at the hotel with whom we had shared some breakfast conversation, filled up with gas at the station next door, and headed out of town.

The drive was absolutely wonderful. Setting the NAV system to guide us avoiding highways turned out to be a fantastic idea. The visions of the countryside and forests would just not have been possible had we simply took the autobahn from one place to another. We stopped for lunch at a supermarket outside of Kaiserslautern and picked up some more waters and some sort of savory pastry that was very tasty. Angela also picked up a bottle of beer+coke. I’m anxious to try it out.

After 5 hours in the car, Angela began to get impatient, so we concluded our trip to Baden-Baden by taking a slight shortcut through France and across the Rhine back into Germany and into Baden-Baden. It was a bit of a challenge finding the hotel, since the route chosen by the NAV lady took us headlong into a barricaded pedestrian area. I was able to detour around the blockade, and we checked into our hotel, the Tanneck. It’s up on a hill above the Kurhaus casino and is in a very quiet area, which will be nice when it comes time to get some sleep. Now, it wouldn’t be our 2007 vacation without some rain, and today didn’t disappoint; a light drizzle falling upon our arrival.

After checking in, we set out to get an orientation of the city. We availed ourselves of a free concert performed by the Baden-Baden philharmonic, then walked into the pedestrian-only downtown area to see what we could see. An ulterior motive was to locate the two main thermal baths in town, the Friedrichsbad and the Caracalla Therme. We decided to go back to the room to get our bathing suits, since we wanted to experience the Caracalla baths after dinner. The baths were fantastic. There are several different pools of varying temperatures, as well as sauna rooms, aromatherapy, tanning, etc. You pay by the hour, with a two hour minimum, so we purchased 2 hours. There were more than a few couples in there who really just should have gotten hotel rooms with Jacuzzi tubs.

I should mention a word about our hotel. It’s perfectly satisfactory with two critical exceptions: the bedding and the towels. The pillows are terrible and flat, and the towels are as abrasive as steel wool; so much so that Angela had to use a dirty nightshirt to dry her face. I just consider it an exfoliation treatment.

Tomorrow, I’m going to try to play golf while Angela does some shopping and hits the spas again. Will the weather cooperate? Who knows.