Baden Baden

Two days ago Jeremy and I drove with our friends to see a town called Baden Baden. Our goal was to see the Black Forest and Strasbourg France as well but it gets dark here pretty early right now so we didn't quite make it. It was a great little adventure though.

To get to Baden Baden I drove almost 3 hours on thin and windy country roads. The scenery was really beautiful. Small villages that seemed to appear out of no where and shepherds with their flocks were all we could see. The mountains are really a sight here too.  Apparently Southern Germany and Northern France are full of size-mic mountains. I am sure that some of them are volcanoes but I don't know which ones nor do I know which ones are still active. What I do know now is that Baden Baden and the Black Forest make a very interesting home.

The Black Forest was beautiful to drive through. They call it the Black Forest because the trees grow so close together it looks black. I think it is also that there is a lot of fog in these mountains. The fog comes from the mountains being so warm. Example: this part of Germany has seen about a foot or more of snow in the last week but much of the ground we saw was green grass do to heat rising out of the mountain's core. When we got really high on the mountains and it was snowing then we saw snow on the ground but I don't know for how long it would last. (We got nervous, not having snow tires, and went back down due to the fog and snow). Even though it was getting dark it was beautiful. The pictures are from the web because it was too dark for me to get pictures. This was our last stop of the day before we headed home.

About 12pm into our day we are stopped at the boarder of France to get some directions and some french pastries. I thought they were pretty good, but the interesting part for me was walking into the bakery and thinking I needed to speak Germany and they spoke French. What was worse was when I started speaking Creole and they couldn't understand me. Even my English was no good, however numbers are the same, so I could point at what I wanted and pay with no problem. On our way through to Baden Baden we stopped at the guard shack and took our pictures infront of the boarder of France and Germany. It was a great little break from the road, plus the people were just precious. (If you look close, you can see the France sign behind Jeremy's head on the right, little blue square).

Arriving in Baden Baden we parked at the Casino and walked for a bit checking out the old part of the city.

We got to see the old roman baths under the city and the new roman baths that are alive and active. It is a big tradition for the people to go in completely naked (men and woman together, out in the open might I add) so needless to say the picture is from far away. I don't want to see naked people but it was so cool how the water was gushing out of the earth steaming at a perfect hot tub temperature. Steam was everywhere do to the fact that the water was rising at least15 feet high. (It is hard to see in the picture but if you look to the left of the church you can see the steam from the bath). The people just built tiled and glass structures around it. If they hadn't been naked and I could have worn a bathing suit, I totally would have gotten in for a few minutes.

That been said we did try the water from the small well. This little sink of water, just like all the other natural flowing hot spring pools here have been flowing for thousands of years. This little sink has been used as cooking, cleaning, bathing, shaving, and drinking water. It is considered good luck to drink from the water. (The people in the picture are Brianna, Bailey, and Milly. Our friends from Spain).

I also found it interesting that for hours we have been driving in these little German villages but as we drove into Baden Baden the scenery changed to an old roman look, and until we got out and walked around I had no idea that the Roman empire extended that far north.

Baden Baden was a roman city first and it was a treasure to see. One really interesting thing was that despite the temperatures being below freezing it looked like spring here.

The church is a constant 85 degrees inside because they built it on top of the hot spring. It was just really an interesting place.

Afterward we of course ate at a great little restaurant. It was expensive but it made the whole trip worth it for Jeremy. I should have taken a picture of the place it was so unique but we were all tired and I didn't want to bother. I hope you enjoy the pictures. Love, Becky