Chilly Final Day in Bacharach

Greetings!  Matt and I have made it back home safe and sound by this point, but we figured for the sake of completeness that we should make a final post about our last day in Germany.  The day started off super foggy and COLD!  Even though it was sort of a downer to have bad weather on the last day, we really can't complain about the weather we've had on this trip...for the most part it has been awesome with very little rain!  Anyway, despite the cold and fog, we decided it was our last day and we were going to make the most of it!  Our plan for the day was to take a cruise along the Rhine River on one of the boats that run throughout the day.  According to our guidebook, the best hour of the cruise was between our home base (Bacharach) and a neighboring town, St. Goar.  Because of the fog, we decided to start off the morning with a quick tour around town on foot in hopes that the fog and chill would burn off later in the afternoon.  As we mentioned in yesterday's post, Bacharach is a sleepy little town without a bunch of "must-see" sites.  However, it is certainly quaint and the surrounding hillside vineyards are beautiful!  We covered most of the town in about an hour...

View of the morning fog on the river from our hotel room.

Still nobody around in the streets...just fine with us!

Interior of the town's requisite Catholic church.  Simple but beautiful.

Touring the streets...we loved the quintessential German style of these buildings (plus they're already preparing for Christmas!)

The town "wishing well" on the right with the vineyards in the background.

Ruins of Bacharach's old pilgrimage cathedral...pretty cool!

Self photo in the vineyards.

Standing at the top of a tower in the vineyards, view of the Catholic church behind.

Artsy timed self photo...cheesy but awesome (we know).

Timed self-photo in the vineyards...those babies were STEEP!

One of the original towers from the old town wall.

At this point it was time to get ready to head out on the river cruise, although clearly none of the fog or gloom had burned off, but it had warmed up to a balmy...

7.2 degrees C!  (or 44 degrees F!)  BRRR!!!

 We made our way to the boat dock to board our chariot for the cruise...

Although the boat had a nice (warm) inside section (where clearly all the people were hanging out, as no one is visible on the boat deck in the previous picture), we decided that we had embarked on this boat cruise to enjoy the scenery from the deck, regardless of the temperature.  It was chilly!

  But we were prepared!

The boat cruise along the Rhine River features some beautiful sites of the towns along the way.  Unfortunately, many of our pictures didn't come out that great due to the inclement weather.  We snapped a few shots along the way anyway of course...

After arriving in St. Goar, we had about an hour to kill before the boat back to Bacharach would depart.  Although we had originally envisioned wandering around and exploring St. Goar, at this point we were absolutely freezing and instead opted to sit at a lovely cafe and have some pastries and coffee to warm up! 

We did a bit of wandering in and out of some of the local shops to kill the remaining time before we headed back to Bacharach.  As luck would have it, the sun managed to break out for the boat ride back.  However, we decided that we were staying inside this time as we had braved it for the same sites on the previous trip!  We still managed to take a few pictures of the gorgeous surroundings.

Once we made it back to Bacharach, it had actually turned into a pretty pleasant day, so we decided that we would spend the remainder of the afternoon before dinner checking out the town's castle up on the hill.  The views from the hillside were amazing!

We conned another couple into taking our picture at the castle.

 Kim standing on the castle wall with the lovely Rhine River in the background.

Once we had finished checking out the castle, we decided to continue our walk around the town walls.  We decided to take the "scenic route."  We're pretty sure this walk is where that expression originated...the hillside vineyards all over the Rhine River Valley are so beautiful!  It made us feel like we were back in Napa, but with a lot more hills!

Once we made it over to the base of the vineyards, we had the brilliant idea to climb up to the walkway above by traversing the vineyards.  Apparently we had forgotten that timed self photo we took this morning where we commented about how STEEP these vineyards were!

It was a challenge, but we made it.  It was worth it, but we decided we would have to find another way down!  Haha!

Above, we took turns climbing up on a precarious ledge to get these pictures. As usual, the pictures don't do it justice! 

For the last time, Gute Nacht!

Love,

Matt and Kim

One Last Stop and One More Castle

We started off the day, as usual, with a lovely European style breakfast at our hotel (the sixth hotel of the trip).  Before checking out, we ventured out into Baden-Baden one last time, as we hadn't done much exploring the previous day (aside from the baths).  One point of particular interest was a mandatory drink from the thermal mineral water fountain, Fettquelle ("rich water source"), which also feeds the baths that we enjoyed yesterday.  Supposedly the 105 degree water fountain has restorative and healing powers.  Matt was hoping that a drink from the fountain would kick the cold that he seems to be developing, so he made sure to take several gulps of the (disgusting-tasting) hot water.  We'll see if it works!  

After taking a few more scenic shots of the baths and town, as well as a quick visit to the towns Catholic church, we made our way back to the hotel to check out and get on our way. 

 Auf Wiedersehen Rathausglockel!

We hopped in the car and made our way (on the Autobahn...Matt was loving it) to our final destination: Bacharach!  The drive wasn't much for scenery, but Matt got a new speed record on the Autobahn at 106 mph - Yahtzee!  We don't actually think that the car will go any faster (at least not with all of our luggage in it).  Upon arriving in Bacharach, we initially wondered if we had missed the memo about the town shutting down for the winter.  There was literally no one in sight, and most of the shops looked closed.  In fact, the door to our hotel was locked and we had to ring the doorbell!  Luckily, our lovely host Fatima quickly let us in and led us up to our room for the next two nights.  The hotel is charming, in a "you're staying in the spare bedroom at your grandmother's house" sort of way.  It certainly meets our needs, and also affords a bit of a laugh.  Fatima is very kind and accommodating, so we're sure it will be great. 

Guten Tag Hotel Kranenturm!

After quickly ditching our bags, we hopped back in the car to head to a destination that we were hoping would have a few more people, the Burg Eltz Castle.  According to our Rick Steves guidebook, this is the best castle in Europe, so even though we have certainly seen our share of castles on this trip, we thought we couldn't pass this one up.  The 45 minute drive through the beautiful countryside of the the Rhine river valley went quickly, and soon we were at the castle parking lot.  After a 1.5 km steep downhill hike through the woods, we got our first glimpse of the beautiful Burg Eltz castle:

It was enchanting!  Burg Eltz castle is set in the middle of a forest and has been left intact for 700 years.  It is decorated and furnished in much the same fashion as it was 500 years ago!  We were excited to check it out, but unfortunately, when we made our way to the ticket booth and pulled out our credit card, we were informed that they didn't take credit unless the total was over 50 Euros (the tickets were only 8 Euros a piece)!  This meant that Matt (kind husband that he is) had to hoof it back up the steep incline to our car and drive to an ATM (which was an adventure in and of itself), then come back down the hill to tour the castle.  We were in a bit of a rush because the last tour was departing at 5:30, which was less than 2 hours away!  Luckily, Matt managed to make it back in time, albeit a bit sweaty, and we were able to take the tour.  The ticket vendor even took pity on us and charged us the student price, as well as giving us some cookies for our trouble.  We just wish that she had been nice enough to run our card to begin with!  Anyway, we got to tour the castle at long last.  Matt claimed that the tour was well worth the sprint that he made up and down the hill, so at least that's saying something!  Here are some pictures we took in the treasury and around the lovely castle grounds.

While Neuschwanstein Castle was certainly beautiful, this was a true Medieval castle that was actually used like a castle that you see in the movies!  The owners of this castle actually had the means to defend it (as is evidenced by their large collection of weaponry and armor), and they actually lived in the castle, unlike Neuschwanstein.  In fact, one of the current generations of the Eltz family members lives in a section of the castle to this day!  After completing the chilly, but enjoyable tour of the castle, we made our way back to the car to head back to Bacharach for dinner and some sleep.  On the way, we passed by a familiar scene...

I thought we weren't in Kansas anymore?

Dinner was enjoyed at the hotel restaurant with a meal prepared by Fatima and her husband Kurt, who run both the hotel and restaurant, seemingly without much help!  They were both gracious hosts, and the food was great too!  Now we are ready for a good night's rest before our final day tomorrow!

Gute nacht!

Love,
Matt and Kim

The baths re-visited...or at least re-typed!

Greetings all!  So apparently last night Google ate our post from yesterday, or at least the part where we detailed out all of the stations at the Roman baths!  Bummer!  So, we are going to do our best to regurgitate it again here for posterity’s sake, although it is a bit lengthy!  Where did we leave off?  Oh yes, we were just commenting about how it wasn’t too shocking to be naked after a while because everyone else was too…

After finally getting up the courage to emerge from our dressing rooms without clothes on, we headed off to phase 1 of the 17 bath stations.  Phase 1 was a thundering room of showers with super powerful, downpour-like showerheads.  After getting over the initial strangeness of showering with multiple other people of both sexes, we made our way to stages 2 and 3, the warm and hot air baths, set at 138 and 166 degrees F respectively.  The first warm air bath was actually pretty relaxing, even though it sounds ridiculously hot (it was a dry heat).  We were lying in a room full of wooden lounge chairs with a bunch of naked people…there’s definitely a bit of a shock factor.  The hot air bath in stage 3, on the other hand, was insanely hot.  Kim actually though that the silver pendant necklace she was wearing was either going to melt or physically burn her skin, it was that hot.  After completing the recommended time in the hot air bath, we made our way to station 4, which was a quick shower before one of the more uncomfortable stations, phase 5:  the soap brush scrub.  At this point, we had just gotten used to the whole being naked bit, but now we were to endure an exfoliating brush scrub administered by one of the staff members.  As “luck” would have it, Kim was paired up with a guy and Matt was to be scrubbed down by a woman.  It was a bit bizarre to be completely naked and scrubbed by another human being with a firm brush and soapsuds, but if nothing else it was “cleansing.” 

After being thoroughly cleaned, we had a quick rinse in the shower (stage 6) before heading into the thermal steam baths in stages 7 and 8.  Much like the warm and hot air baths, these stages were in order of increasing temperature, at 120 degrees and 126 degrees respectively.  Somehow these baths felt incredibly hot compared to the dry heat baths.  It almost felt like you were going to suffocate when you took a deep breath!  Luckily, we only had 5 minutes in the hotter of the two steam rooms!  Onto stages 9, 10, and 11, which were a series of thermal baths of decreasing temperature.  Stages 9 and 10 were pretty comfortable at 102 degrees and 98 degrees (body temperature), but stage 11 actually felt pretty chilly, although it was really about 86 degrees!  I guess when you’ve adjusted your body to the super hot temperatures of the dry and wet air baths, 86 degrees feels downright cold!  This was actually pretty unfortunate because the bath in stage 11 was set underneath a gorgeous dome 60 feet above!  We tried relaxing and floating around for a few minutes, but eventually Kim had had enough and had to get out and move on to the next stage, which was again, the showers (with adjustable temperature).  

While it was nice to be able to adjust the temperature back to super warm in the showers, it was perhaps a bit unfortunate because coming up next was stage 13:  the “cold plunge.”  If we thought the previous balmy bath was cold, we were definitely in for a rude awakening on this one, which was set at a chilling 66 degrees F!  It felt icy, but luckily it was located right next to the showers, so we took turns jumping into the cold water and running back to the hot shower.  After doing it once, we thought it felt pretty good and ended up going back for a few more rounds! 

Finally, we had had enough and were ready to dry off in heated towels at stage 14, before making our way to the oddest stage of all:  “cream application.”  It sounds harmless enough, but imagine, a room of full-length mirrors with jugs of lotion and a group of naked people, all covering their bodies with lotion…yeah, it was bizarre.  At least in this station you were able to apply the cream to your own body (although we definitely saw some couples helping each other…eww).  Needless to say, we didn’t stay here for long.  Next it was off to stage 16, the “resting area.”  In this stage, you were cocooned in warm sheets and blankets to “rest” for 30 minutes (or so) in a dimly lit room.  It was pretty relaxing, but by this point we were getting hungry and were ready to finish up at the baths.  Luckily, stage 17 was a “reading room,” which seemed silly to partake in since all of the reading material was in German!  We passed on stage 17 and made our way to the dressing rooms again to change and get on our way.

Looking back on the experience now, we are certainly glad that we did it, although even typing about it and thinking about it seems completely bizarre!  It was definitely an experience we will never forget!

Alright folks, there you have it, the saga of the Roman baths (again)….this time we are saving the text in a separate word document, just in case!!

Love,
Matt and Kim

Black Forest Tour and (Bare-Naked?) Baths in Baden-Baden

Greetings from Baden-Baden!  We had quite the eventful day today!  It started off with the best hotel breakfast to date (which was actually pretty surprising as this hotel itself is not that special).  After grabbing breakfast pretty early, we hopped into our little Mercedes hatchback to make our way through the Black Forest!  The drive was of course, beautiful...

Along the way, we snapped some shots of the beautiful scenery, but then we passed something that we absolutely HAD to stop for...COWS....WITH BELLS!!!  I know, we've all seen cows along the side of the road, but how many times have we really seen cows with bells along the side of the road?  We couldn't think of any, so we decided to stop and try to photograph them...

After entertaining ourselves with the cows, we made another detour to the German Clock Museum.  This museum sounds really dull, but it was actually pretty interesting (although I think it would have been more interesting if the English translations were actually in the correct order in the guidebook...but hey, we got a game of "Where's Waldo?" out of it to boot...).  The museum basically traces the history of clock-making in Germany and other countries from the sundial to the atomic clock.  It also featured an extensive collection of not only clocks, but also mechanical music machines which were super impressive!  We hopped on the German guided tour of the museum for a bit so that we could watch them being demonstrated...amazing. 

After the clock museum, it was back on the road again.  Our next stop was Germany's longest waterfall, Triberger Wasserfall.  The park was really beautiful, and it was only a short 10 minute walk down to the waterfall itself, so it fit in well with our trip through the forest.

 On our way to the waterfall (Kim holding up the tree?  Beer...it does a body good).

 The waterfall!  It doesn't look super big, but it actually tumbles 500 feet in several bounces.

 Obligatory self-photo...

With that we were back on our way to our next hotel in Baden-Baden.  Shortly after agreeing "No more stops" along the way, we came upon the following sign...

 "Rodelbahn!!!"

We had seen a couple of these luges at Neuschwanstein, but we didn't have the opportunity to use them because we were tied up with touring the castles.  This time, we decided we couldn't pass it up.  

 Belted in and ready to GO!

 On our way UP!

Getting excited (and high up off the ground!)

After dropping the camera the day before, Matt wasn't permitted to take the camera out in precarious situations.  This definitely qualified.  Hence, we have no pictures of the ride itself, but this is a picture of the course from the ground.  

It was a fast and smooth ride down, well worth the 5 Euros it cost for the both of us!  Good times.

With our LAST stop completed, we were on the last leg of our journey through the Black Forest to Baden-Baden.  After a couple more hours of driving through the gorgeous countryside, we had arrived.  Our hotel in Baden-Baden, Hotel Rathausglockel, is run by a German-American named Oliver who we had the pleasure of meeting upon checking in.  He was exceptionally nice and put us up in a lovely room with a rooftop terrace.  It is great...makes us wish that we were spending more than one night here, but alas.  

After quickly taking our bags to the room, we were off to our real destination for the day, the famous Roman-Irish Baths: Friedrichsbad. 

Unfortunately, these are the only three pictures we have of the experience, because the next 3.5 hours were spent in the baths, nude.  Cameras weren't permitted for obvious reasons, so we'll do our best to explain.  Friedrichsbad basically combines the Roman bathing culture with Irish hot-air baths.  It is a tribute to the ruins of the ancient Roman baths, on which it was physically constructed in 1877.  In keeping with the traditional Roman bath culture, the baths are completely nude (yes, nude).  And mixed sex on certain days (including Tuesdays, the day we were there).  After reading lots of reviews online, we actually thought that going on a mixed sex day might be preferable, so that we could do the whole experience together.  Unfortunately, they don't turn anyone away at the door, so we saw a lot (a LOT) of naked people of all shapes, sizes, and ages...it was, in a word, an experience.  We found that once we were inside, we basically forgot (sort of) about being naked because everyone is naked around you too, so it doesn't seem too shocking.  

Tomorrow we are back on the road, heading to Bacharach, a little town along the Rhine River in the northwest of Germany.  This will be our last stop before heading to Frankfurt on Friday for our flight home.  

Gute nacht!

Love,

Matt and Kim