Wild & Crazy Adventures with Jim and Aleycia

July 24th: Baden-Baden

Tonight we take an overnight train to Paris! We left Bacharach and headed for Baden-Baden. Ended up taking a little detour (part of figuring out the train stations, but was only about a 45 minute correction). Made it to Frankfurt, and did I say that we did not like the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof? (That is main train station). Okay, we hated the Frankfurt Hbf! After we were getting sick of figuring out how to find the right train, I stumbled upon this add. It took me awhile to figure out what it was, but I finally did...and suggested to Jim that we take a photo. He was completely embarrassed by his wife standing in front of the sign snapping a shot. I had to. Must be the nurse in me! Jim made a run in the other direction. Tried to get him in the shot, but he would have none of it...so I got his photo afterwards! Later we discovered the Fahrkarten (automated ticket stand that you could get timetable information...and you could print out your whole itinerary...and it gave you the track number of where to go!) Jim called the Fahrkarten Frankincense!

So Baden-Baden is a romantic resort town. Royalty used to come from all over Europe to take the Kur- a soak in the curative mineral waters, and enjoy the world's top casino (According to Rick Steves). The town has a Parisian feel...kind of like a bistro. Beautiful walking paths and gardens complete with couples strolling around with their poodles.

The Roman baths are still popular in this town. There are two different baths: One naked, and one with swim suits. You actually lose a kilo after the ritual. We weren't into the whole naked bath option, but I was all about losing a kilo! But, I forgot my suit in the lockers at the train station. Oh, well!

Ate supper at the Lowenbrau Biergarten. Started getting sick of pork, but that's all there is here. I had sausage and Jim had roasted pork and potato dumplings. And, being the frugal people we are, we ordered the least expensive drink on the menu- Beer. Jim said he ordered beer because I did. After a few sips, he said he had to stop because the world was spinning.
I think they brought us each a half liter of beer. Did you know that the average German drinks a pint of beer every 32 hours (which is slightly less than the average Irish or Czech)?


We took the train back to Karlsruhe, where we caught our night train to Paris. Nothing like sitting in the dark station at midnight waiting for our 12:30am train to come in. Well, at least there were two nuns sitting near to us :) We didn't reserve a couchette (room with 4-6 bunks to sleep in), but we were told that the seats lay out flat and you can sleep in the compartments on the train. Well, ours didn't fold out, and we ended up sharing a compartment with "Paris" a German man in his 70's probably. Very nice man. We showed him pictures of ND and our family....and he thinks you are all very beautiful! He was a very hard breather, lets say, and maybe had some COPD. So, I spent the night wondering if he was going to make it. Breathe. Pause. Pause. Pause. Cough. Breathe. Pause. Pause. Pause......Pause. COUGH! Oh, it was stressful. It was a bad idea not to have a couchette. We were awake most of the night- no room to lie down, no pillow, etc. Long night considering we don't arrive till 8:00am. Well, Paris (the German) shared his polish caramels with us in the morning, which made the experience well worth it!!

posted by Aleycia & Jim @ 9:49 AM