Baden-baden is a resort town built around some geothermal hot springs. First built up by the Romans and utilized as a getaway for kings and emperors, this beautiful place has the feel of old money. The combinations of restaurants and upscale shops felt like South Coast Plaza, for all you non-californians that's an uppity mall near the ocean.
The town was a short train ride away (remember that our hostel was right next to the station) and the spa was right near a large plaza. The Friederichsbad is a 150 year-old bath house with a four-hour regimen of hot and cold treatments, all for less than the cost of an hour at Massage Envy. Many days of the week, men and women are separate, but on Sunday the facilities are joined, so Devon and Matt spent their time together.
Did we mention we were naked the whole time? Yes, naked. It may be indelicate to say, but if we had our druthers, we'd be naked all the time. Except when its windy.
Both of us got the full package, including a soap and brush massage. The bespeckled man who scrubbed us down looked exactly like you think a German Masseuse would. Let's just say he was a man very comfortable "giving instructions". Ha, Germans are funny.
Devon got a soft brush, but Matt elected form the hard brush. He felt like a potato that was about to be wrapped in foil. We'd like to take a moment to memorialize all of the layers of skin that are no longer with him.
We came out relaxed, glowing and hungry. Dinner was traditional German food: meat in some familiar-yet-mysterious sauce, starch, and salad. With beer. Mmm, beer. Welcome to Germany.
An easy relaxing Sunday, with no particular hurry. On Monday morning, we catch our train to Paris. (As we write this, we are on that train, and we just hit 320 kilometers per hour).
Oh, and Devon found some German translations of American comics at a bookstore, so we got nerdy excited about that. Matt bought a Batman and stumbled through reading it to her while we waited for our return train.
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