Destination known and looking for jobs!: Baden-Baden

After our one night in Heidelburg, we drove on to Baden-Baden. Baden-Baden is known for the warm springs in the area and their healing properties. Anyone that knows Jeff and I, knows that we are suckers for warm springs so we had to check it out. There are several fountains around town where you can drink the spring water out of. They say it’s the elixir of youth and has healing properties. Having just entered my 30’s and having the bad cold, I was willing to try anything. IT’S NASTY! The water is warm and a little salty and full of minerals. Gross! But I drank about 200 milliliters of that liquid, and I don’t think it stopped my aging but my cold did get better over the next day or so.

I think what really helped the cold though, was the Roman-Irish bath that Baden-Baden is so famous for. There are two bathhouses in Baden-Baden, the one where you wear clothes and the one where you don’t. We chose to go to Friedrishcsbad, the naked, bath and on Sundays its co-ed. I was a little bit nervous being completely naked around so many people, but it only took about three minutes to get used it or maybe its because you are so relaxed. You move from room to room and through dry warm hot air and into steam baths and different pools of water and showers with pure thermal water. The temperature changes between the rooms and pools are deliberately coordinated to beneficial; after a sharp increase at the beginning where they cook you in the dry rooms, the temperatures gently drop until the cold water immersion bath at end. The cold water was a bit shocking at first, but kind of made your skin tingle and actually felt good once you were out. All the rooms either had hand painted tiles lining them or beautiful Roman statues or carvings. In most of the pool rooms, the ceilings were domed and let in natural light. We spent about three hours there and left feeling completely relaxed.