Monthly Archives: August 2024

Aug31

The train from Stuttgart into Brussels

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Monday, 29-July-2024


Stuttgart was glorious, but neither fey forests, glorious hot springs, nor amazing company can halt the flow of time… and soon enough I found myself back on a major rail line, bags packed and stowed safely, forging my way toward a new destination.

Not my final destination of the trip, but exceptionally close – the final stop on the adventure, before I’d land in my new home of Ireland. The capital of the European Union, home of comic books, and the land of chocolates; Belgium.


The trains were simple and beautifully straightforward this time – no repeats of the “your pass doesn’t work” tomfoolery of France / Switzerland, just a clean and relaxing journey out of Germany and into Belgium – as a bonus, it was an unexpectedly nostalgic journey, as the stopover city of Koeln (Also known as Cologne to us English speakers) had something I hadn’t seen in ages, and absolutely wasn’t expecting – Dunkin’ Donuts! Hurrah, New England represent!

And Burger King, but I’d seen that before. Was a heck of a lot better here, though. And as a neat point – Burger King in Germany was effectively a vegan restaurant! A legit half of the menu was vegan, with a surprisingly small portion of the total menu being carnivorous or meat based… I’d hazard a guess that 70% was vegetarian or vegan, and I’ll freely admit that the burger was quite excellent. Expensive, but worth the extra cost over the United States.



So fortified, I saw the train ride though, and soon enough was settled into Belgium, enjoying some solitude and preparing myself for the adventures to come…

Aug30

Soaking in the Friedrichsbad hot springs

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Saturday, 27-July-2024


I’m in Germany, soaking in a hotspring that Mark Twain once visited, and said that  “After 10 minutes you forget time and after 20 minutes you forget the world.”

I mean, I didn’t expect to be taking travel advice from Mark Twain, but that’s a pretty dang intense recommendation if I’ve ever heard one. How could I say no?

I couldn’t, and the end of July found me melting away in the glorious spa of Friedrichsbad. Warm showers, followed by warm mineral pools, with salt steam rooms, saunas, hot tubs and lap pools… the spa really was a fully intense experience. I found myself fully understanding what Mr. Twain had said, and that after the first room or two I really had no idea what time it was, or how much time had passed.

It was a completely different experience from the pools of Iceland – there, the focus was mainly soaking in one specific pool, or possibly moving from cooler to hotter, and back again, as I found in Krauma… whereas in Friedrichsbad it was a sequenced ritual. Very German, which should have come as no surprise in retrospect, where we went through 16 rooms in sequence. Phones were, of course, left in the lockers so my dear readers will have to forgive me a lack of photographic documentation… but understand that it was absolutely beautiful and stunningly Romanesque.

For more photos, I fully recommend checking out their website – for now, I’ll sit back and luxuriate in the memory of the warmth, the salty tang of the air, and the serenity that I was suffused with.

Link = https://friedrichsbad.net/

Aug29

Exploring Baden-Baden

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Saturday, 27-July-2024


The day before, we hiked and explored the feywild, or at least the part of the feywild in Bad Urach, Germany. Today, we luxuriated in our adventure, soaking in the warmth and health of the primal hot springs of Friedrichsbad.

To get to the hot-springs, we went through the town of Baden-Baden – a tourist town by any definition, full of neat shops and lovely cafes.


The restaurants I sorted under the “Exploring Stuttgart” post, to keep things simple, so here I’ll just include the views of Baden-Baden. It was lovely, relaxing, and simple – two trains and a bus brought us here, and a bus followed by two trains brought us home to Stuttgart. We wandered, we snacked, and we enjoyed the pattering of rain – never quite enough to be a problem, but just enough to be noticeable and a slight worry. Thankfully, the Black Forest cake went a long ways to assuaging the concerns, and the beautiful flowers and views did a good job of assisting with the rest.