Europe Day 11 – Baden-Baden to Schwangau
It was a tough day. I’m being sarcastic. It started with a hearty German breakfast at the hotel. Afterwards we grabbed our stuff and put it in the car. We walked about a block and down some stairs to the Freidrich’s Bad. This is a Roman Bath House (no, not that kind) that was built in the late 1800’s. We said goodbye to each other for a little while as we went to our separate locker rooms. Once you are done with the locker room, everything is completely nude. Yes, nude. They have a recommended plan that everyone seems to follow. The men and women go through the 16 steps individually, except for steps 10 and 11, which they do together.
First you take a shower. It’s one of those with a huge showerhead and tons of water coming down from 10 feet high. That was great. After that you lay on a teak (type of wood) lounge chair in a dry sauna for 15 minutes. Then you move to an even hotter sauna for 5 minutes. Afterwards you take another shower. Step 5 is supposed to be a 30 minute soap and brush massage, but there was a wait, so everyone was waiting in the thermal vapor sauna (which is step 7). It is recommended that you stay in this room for 10 minutes, but since the massages were backed up, I was in there for 45 minutes. Did I mention 45 minutes in a room with 6 or 7 other naked sweating guys? Yuck.
I laid down on a table for my massage and I was in pain. First it was strange to have another guy toughing me while I was naked, but he was pressing really hard. I have decided I don’t like massages. They always press too hard and I leave feeling bruised. I know it didn’t go for 30 minutes (and I was glad), because there were so many people waiting. My skin did feel smooth afterwards. I took a quick shower (Step 6), skipped Step 7 since I was already in there for 45 minutes, spent 2 minutes in Step 8 (another thermal vapor room), and moved on to Step 9. Step 9 was a warm pool. It felt really good, but I was only in there for 15 seconds when I saw Vanessa getting into a pool in the next room.
I decided to skip this wonderful, warm, relaxing pool to spend a couple of minutes with her. The pool she was in was in the middle of the bathhouse and it was under an impressive dome. The whole room was probably 40 feet across. This pool was considerably colder than the one I just came from. After quietly telling Vanessa about my experience, I noticed this was step 11. Wait a minute… What happened to step 10? I saw another pool behind me with the number 10 on it. I swam over to it and stepped in. I waved for Vanessa to join me, but she had already done this step too. Damn! I slowly walked back over the pool she was in (which was probably 65 degrees). By the time I got back in, she was ready to get out. So we walked off back into our separate sides to do step 12.
Sep 12 was another shower. Step 13 was aptly named. Actually it should have been called step 666. It was a small pool that had freezing cold water in it. I walked in and before I knew it my head was under that water and I was back out again standing on the tile shivering and naked. Step 14 was drying-off with warm dry towels. Step 15 was a little strange, but was nice. It consisted of standing in a room… in front of a long mirror… surrounded by lights… while putting on lotion… naked. Did I mention I was naked? Okay, just checking. Step 16 was probably the best. You go into a large room that has 16 beds all of the way around the perimeter and 3 beds in the middle. The guy places a clean sheet on a bed, you lay down, and he wraps you up in the sheet in the blanket like a little baby. You just lay there quietly for 30 minutes. That was nice.
I returned to the locker room, got dressed, and headed back to the entrance to wait for Vanessa. She joined me about 10 minutes later and we headed down to town to grab some lunch. We wanted something to go, so we bought two sandwiches, cherries, and water. Off we went. I stopped for gas before leaving town. Gas is $4.20 per gallon in Europe. That’s nothing new, it was that much when I was here 13 years ago. They tax it heavily to encourage public transportation.
The first hour on the autobahn was full of slow speed limits, but once we got past Stuttgart, it opened up. We stopped at a rest stop for lunch. It’s illegal and dangerous to eat and drive. I kept it under 110 mph and whisked through the black forest towards the German-Austrian border. Vanessa woke up just as the German Alps came into view. There was snow on the ground and on the mountain. Vanessa took some nice pictures. As we pulled into town I drove straight to the castles. The main reason for coming to Schwangau is to see Neuschwanstein. This is the famous castle you see in all of the pictures and the one that the castle at Disneyland is modeled after. The castles were closing in 30 minutes, so we headed to the hotel.
It’s a nice place, and if we lean out of our window, we can see the castle. We decided to get a snack before dinner after getting lost and crossing the Austrian border, once again driving in a walking zone, and heading back to the castles we found a place. You wouldn’t even notice that we crossed over the border except for a small sign. We each ate an apple strudel and went back to the hotel. We ate dinner at the hotel and ended up sitting next to another American couple. I had Venison (Bambi) and Vanessa had pasta and shrimp. It’s a tough life. We talked to the other throughout dinner and talked about some of the differences between the United States and Europe. Not a bad day.
First you take a shower. It’s one of those with a huge showerhead and tons of water coming down from 10 feet high. That was great. After that you lay on a teak (type of wood) lounge chair in a dry sauna for 15 minutes. Then you move to an even hotter sauna for 5 minutes. Afterwards you take another shower. Step 5 is supposed to be a 30 minute soap and brush massage, but there was a wait, so everyone was waiting in the thermal vapor sauna (which is step 7). It is recommended that you stay in this room for 10 minutes, but since the massages were backed up, I was in there for 45 minutes. Did I mention 45 minutes in a room with 6 or 7 other naked sweating guys? Yuck.
I laid down on a table for my massage and I was in pain. First it was strange to have another guy toughing me while I was naked, but he was pressing really hard. I have decided I don’t like massages. They always press too hard and I leave feeling bruised. I know it didn’t go for 30 minutes (and I was glad), because there were so many people waiting. My skin did feel smooth afterwards. I took a quick shower (Step 6), skipped Step 7 since I was already in there for 45 minutes, spent 2 minutes in Step 8 (another thermal vapor room), and moved on to Step 9. Step 9 was a warm pool. It felt really good, but I was only in there for 15 seconds when I saw Vanessa getting into a pool in the next room.
I decided to skip this wonderful, warm, relaxing pool to spend a couple of minutes with her. The pool she was in was in the middle of the bathhouse and it was under an impressive dome. The whole room was probably 40 feet across. This pool was considerably colder than the one I just came from. After quietly telling Vanessa about my experience, I noticed this was step 11. Wait a minute… What happened to step 10? I saw another pool behind me with the number 10 on it. I swam over to it and stepped in. I waved for Vanessa to join me, but she had already done this step too. Damn! I slowly walked back over the pool she was in (which was probably 65 degrees). By the time I got back in, she was ready to get out. So we walked off back into our separate sides to do step 12.
Sep 12 was another shower. Step 13 was aptly named. Actually it should have been called step 666. It was a small pool that had freezing cold water in it. I walked in and before I knew it my head was under that water and I was back out again standing on the tile shivering and naked. Step 14 was drying-off with warm dry towels. Step 15 was a little strange, but was nice. It consisted of standing in a room… in front of a long mirror… surrounded by lights… while putting on lotion… naked. Did I mention I was naked? Okay, just checking. Step 16 was probably the best. You go into a large room that has 16 beds all of the way around the perimeter and 3 beds in the middle. The guy places a clean sheet on a bed, you lay down, and he wraps you up in the sheet in the blanket like a little baby. You just lay there quietly for 30 minutes. That was nice.
I returned to the locker room, got dressed, and headed back to the entrance to wait for Vanessa. She joined me about 10 minutes later and we headed down to town to grab some lunch. We wanted something to go, so we bought two sandwiches, cherries, and water. Off we went. I stopped for gas before leaving town. Gas is $4.20 per gallon in Europe. That’s nothing new, it was that much when I was here 13 years ago. They tax it heavily to encourage public transportation.
The first hour on the autobahn was full of slow speed limits, but once we got past Stuttgart, it opened up. We stopped at a rest stop for lunch. It’s illegal and dangerous to eat and drive. I kept it under 110 mph and whisked through the black forest towards the German-Austrian border. Vanessa woke up just as the German Alps came into view. There was snow on the ground and on the mountain. Vanessa took some nice pictures. As we pulled into town I drove straight to the castles. The main reason for coming to Schwangau is to see Neuschwanstein. This is the famous castle you see in all of the pictures and the one that the castle at Disneyland is modeled after. The castles were closing in 30 minutes, so we headed to the hotel.
It’s a nice place, and if we lean out of our window, we can see the castle. We decided to get a snack before dinner after getting lost and crossing the Austrian border, once again driving in a walking zone, and heading back to the castles we found a place. You wouldn’t even notice that we crossed over the border except for a small sign. We each ate an apple strudel and went back to the hotel. We ate dinner at the hotel and ended up sitting next to another American couple. I had Venison (Bambi) and Vanessa had pasta and shrimp. It’s a tough life. We talked to the other throughout dinner and talked about some of the differences between the United States and Europe. Not a bad day.
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