Gernsbach (Baden Baden)

We moved 10 minutes to get here, the shortest move ever. But Gaggenau stellplatz had 48hr limit and we wanted to do Baden Baden. Gaggenau had become an unexpected day of mopping out the van.

Baden Baden is a historic spa town famous with the rich of time gone by, and is a lovely town, lots of green space around it. Friedrichsbad is the old baths used by Royalty and others who’s wealth permitted such luxuries. This is where we went to try the waters. If you are of a delicate disposition this is the time to stop reading.

We paid and on passing the turnstile the first things I noticed was a mans private parts (well I’m female!) . In for a cent in for a euro so in the mixed changing rooms under the eyes of the other occupants it became time to throw caution to the wind. Having stripped naked we wandered to the first of the 17 “stations” where we were met by a fully textile’d bloke about the same age as our youngest son and the same height so while I looked at his stomach as he explained the system. The first room was a sauna type temperature, with beds laid out, I spread my towel on the bed painfully aware my naked backside was about 2 foot away from the man laid on the next bed. As we progressed to hotter rooms we thought we had the hang of this but then comes the massage. This was like no massage I have had, laid on a bed, John on the next bed, unknown people occupying the other 2 a women covers me in soap, asked if I want a hard or soft brush, hard in my case,soft for John and the proceeded to scrub me with the hard scrubbing brush like I was any floor in Victorian times. After that came the steam rooms and then a variety of ornately decorated pools decreasing in temperature until finally the cold plunge. After all this exertion, the tall 20-odd year old lays you on a bed and wraps you like a mummy in a blanket, leaving you to roast for 30mins. Finally a cup of tea is offered on the balcony overlooking the town. I assume the offices opposite are used to naked people sat around drinking tea.

We also did Schloss Favorite a hunting lodge of some past rich person, the grounds are nice but the tour of the house is a waste of money. We finalised this stay with a visit to a restaurant called the Dubrovnik. This was one of the best meal we have had in our travels, French you need to learn from this place.