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.

Aug28

Hiking up the waterfalls of Bad Urach

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Friday, 26-July-2024


This isn’t your simple boring trail. This was a PREMIUM trail.

Said so on the signs, on Alltrails, and online… so it must be true, right? Right!

What does a “premium” trail mean, you may ask? Well, dear reader, that’s a very astute question! I’m so glad you asked. You see… I have no idea.

Was fun, though.



Kika, visiting in from Poland, and I had come up with a plan – a day of hiking, then a day of hot springs. We perused the options for hikes, and found this absolutely lovely gem of a hike fairly close to Stuttgart – at least, easily accessible by train, which was the key. The adventure was a double-header, thanks to that – not only was it a hike-adventure into the woods, but it was also a train-adventure, giving me one more piece of exposure to this weird European thing called “safe and reliable public transportation”.

I’d gotten slightly used to major rail lines by this point, of course, but the local trains were a different beast – as was navigating them. Thankfully Kika was along for the ride to help me out, and we safely charted our way from Stuttgart, out into the wildlands of Bad Urach. It was a near-thing, with a very closely-caught train, but we made it none-the-less, and soon enough were setting boots to gravel and heading up the trail.


It was gorgeous. Good views, excellent walking, and a mystical quality that’s completely lacking from North American trails.

Not that trails in the States aren’t magical, but… this is different. The trails and views of the Pacific Northwest are the raw power of nature – Rock golems and mountain giants. The trails of Bad Urach were mystical, speaking of the fey, kobolds, and long-lost memories. I mean, just look at the staircase with a waterfall running down it, or the constructed pools and ruins of ancient huts. A castle, lying in rubble, up on a nearby hill. It’s a story of natured tamed, and nature resurgent.

In short – it was magical and lovely.