Day 59 (August 6th): Baden Baden

We woke up at 9:00 AM, showered and went downstairs for breakfast. Breakfast was served buffet style in the dining room and there was a nice selection of rolls, meats, cheeses, juices, eggs, lox and other assorted goodies. The kids ate cereal, hard boiled eggs and croissants. I focused in on the lox on pretzel bread (great combo!). Now that we had a solid breakfast we were ready to hit the town. Baden Baden is one of the oldest spa towns in the world and our plan was to find a spa and relax for the day. We asked the concierge about the spas and found out that there are two of them. One separated the men and women and had nudity, the other one allowed men and women together. It was clear which one was more family oriented. We got our gear and walked to the Caravelle Therme Spa. We went inside and bought a 4 hour block of spa time and reserved a few massages. This spa was built upon thermal springs so the water you swim in is naturally heated water. Within the complex is a number of different pools. There is a huge indoor pool that connects to an outdoor pool with 96 degree water. Then there are a couple of other pools with 103 degree water. In addition they have a cold pool (65 degrees), a very hot pool (105+), a couple of aromatherapy steam rooms, and a relaxing room with reclining chairs and heat lamps. You can't beat it. The water is wonderful and the kids had a great time going from one room/pool to another. Our favorites were the aromatherapy steam room where you sit and sweat while breathing in fragranced air, and the outside pool that had a circular jet propulsion system that shot you around the pool. When we were walking around we found an upstairs area called the Roman room and went to check it out. It was a nudist outdoor hang out area and "things" were definitely "hanging out". The people there were older and I made sure not to focus in on anything so I could sleep at night, but Allison and Hannah saw an old guy that they soon will not forget (sorry, no pictures). We went back downstairs and hit the pools again. Our four hours went by pretty quickly and we needed to head out so we could make our massage time (4:00 PM). Zach didn't want a massage so we got him a hydro massage instead. We went up to the Hydro room which was very odd looking with various metal and water contraptions. The picture on the left of Hannah standing in one of the pools gives you a basic sense of the room. First you soak in a big tub (see picture on top) and a big German woman cleans your body with a brush. Then you stand against a wall and she takes a high powered hose and sprays your body with a combination of hot and cold water. Although this sounds rather strange Zach actually liked it. Hannah had a hydro massage also. It was now 5:00PM and we had 30 minutes before our real massages so we walked around the block and got some food. I had a salami sandwich and the kids had pretzels and croissants. I took the first massage time slot and walked back to the building. The massage focused on the back only. Hannah took the next one and then Al took the last one. It was now 7:00 PM and we walked around town looking for a restaurant to eat dinner at. The kids found a little playground next to a restaurant near the water so we decided this was a good place to eat. While Al stayed with the kids, I made a side trip to the world famous Baden Baden casino (see picture on right) a couple of blocks away to get my last casino chip of the summer. I did pretty well gathering a total of 9 chips for my collection. Back at the restaurant, Zach ordered mozzarella sticks, Hannah had buffalo wings, Al had a Thai pasta with a white wine and I had a chicken club with a beer. After dinner we walked around looking for our ice cream night cap but had a difficult time finding any. We ended up going back to the hotel and getting some. They wouldn't allow us to bring it to the room, but instead they needed to provide us room service "for insurance purposes". 3 scoops of ice cream cost us 10 Euros ($14 dollars) and then they charged us 5 Euros ($7) for room service. This was definitely the most expensive ice cream of the trip. We all showered up and laid in bed watching a French game show on TV that was actually pretty enjoyable even though we didn't understand what they were saying. It was our most relaxing day of the summer and we all had no problem falling asleep.