This week, a story about a big-bellied white nudist guy chasing a trio of laptop-stealing boars through the forest in Germany while others cheered him on shouldn't have been too surprising, at least to the Germans.
Two years ago, Fabienne and I dropped into the German town of Baden-Baden about 45 minutes from Strasbourg, France, and just a few miles east of the Rhine River on the edge of The Black Forest. It's a gorgeous place that even the Romans frequented because of its hot mineral springs. The Romans loved a good hot bath. There's also plenty of hiking, swimming, parasailing, excellent restaurants, beer, and gemütlich or cozy B&Bs. I'd go back.
We spent the night before in Strasbourg, where we were a bit defeated by the rain our first night and by the crowds and imagined pick-pockets the next day. I didn't like Strasbourg, but I could probably live there (I can't explain it, but I do live in Fresno).
Tourist gather to admire the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Strasbourg, or Cathedral of Our Lady of Strasbourg. It is worth the visit.
Strasbourg was the first place we visited that I saw the ultimate in recycling at two different restaurants: the waitstaff tossing the once-served bread rolls back into a basket for the plates of the next customers. Maybe every restaurant does this, but I never saw it out in the open before. Since I saw it at two different places, it might even be part of the city's restaurant code.
We left Strasbourg early-ish in the morning and arrived in Baden-Baden around lunchtime. We took a walk through town, found a Löwenbrau beer garden, and ordered our favorite German foods and favorite beer.
Unlike American restaurants where your time eating is costing the restaurant money, many European restaurants allow you to take your time. The waitstaff does this by not stopping by the table every 20 minutes, asking, "Are you still working on that?" I think they don't mind if you digest some of your food before hitting the road.
This is Löwenbrau logo on a coaster.
To be fair, some European restaurants recognize American diners and take their time to annoy you, mainly if you act American. But I have a pretty good grasp of traveling German, and more often than not, my accent and idioms make me fit in so well I get linguistically lost before the Germans realize I am not from there. In my younger days, the Germans thought I was Dutch, which I took as a compliment.
So, after ninety minutes and perhaps a second beer, we continued our walking tour of Baden-Baden.
Our walk took us by the Stiftskirche or Collegiate Church (pictured above), one of the oldest buildings in Baden-Baden, first mentioned in 987 and burned to the ground in 1689. And rebuilt. Etc.
Our wandering took us on a path straight to the doors of The Friedrichsbad, an Irish-Roman bath that has been in business for more than 130 years.
The gateway to Friedrichsbad.
On a whim, we walked through the front door, bought an E-Ticket (kids, ask your grandparents for an explanation), and held on for the ride.
The hostess handed us our electronic keys and sent us up the marble stairs to a locker room. Did we need swimwear? She said, not to worry. The key knew which locker was ours and what part of the ride we were allowed to use. We bought the whole trip (for 20 Euros, it seemed reasonable).
The lockers were in a clean and very modern room, with no women's area or men's area. Inside each locker, there was a sheet — no Speedo or thong. Just a sheet or toga to anesthetize our feelings of insecurity. We were the only ones in the room. So, we carefully wrapped ourselves, Fabienne making sure my toga fit just right. We walked 20 steps to the shower area where a bemused "helper” dressed in white greeted us.
"First time?"
"Yes."
"Now! Take that off!"
I'm sure he didn't mean it that way, but that's how some Germans sound when giving directions in English because that's how they sound in German. That's how my mother sounded, so I took no offense.
We handed him the sheets. He opened the door to the shower area and invited us to enter.
We stood there naked for a second behind the closed door before we realized what was happening. We were in a room full of ordinary naked people. No sheets anywhere. The ride had begun.
The front of the The Friedrichsbad, a classic bathhouse, looks more like a bank.
I'm not sure what kept us going. Maybe we should have read the brochure. But we had done karaoke before, so we also knew we would never see these people again.
The next attendant directed us to take a showerhead and a lever. She then led us to pull the lever to allow the water to flow over us.
The first thing that struck me (besides the obvious) was how much water poured on us. It was like standing under Yo Semite falls in the spring (only the water was warm).
California and Fresno were in the midst of a drought, which meant many of us were showering with a five-gallon bucket to save "gray" water for our gardens. Here, more water dumped on us in 30 seconds than we used in a month of showers back home. It was delightful. And this was the first of 17 stations.
We booked the full-on spa treatment. Almost three hours of nakedness and communion that included a scrub ("Hard or soft brush?" he asked), a sauna (hot and hotter!), a cream massage, and in between lots of floating in different temperature mineral waters from the geothermal wells that are abundant in this area. Hence the name Baden-Baden. The rooms were ornate with towering domed ceilings and tiled walls, not your typical Y pool.
Fabienne was cracking up as the guy working on my skin with a hard or soft brush wanted to know all about The Beach Boys. When he finished with my back, he slapped my butt and told me to roll over.
She was two slabs away, and everyone could hear.
The next stop was the sauna. Unlike the sauna's at our gyms, this sauna held maybe 40 people. We sat next to each other on a pyramid of ceramic seats about 8 feet high. The higher you sat, the hotter it got.
Once you had enough, you followed the sign to the first of several pools of warm, warmer, and finally hot water. The Irish part is a cold plunge at the end of the trip. We didn't partake. We have our limits.
The experience ended with a pleasant cup of hot herbal tea in the relaxing room. We got our togas back, and I wondered why. I had a cup of tea and fell asleep under my toga on a lounge chair.
Fabienne stands near one of 12 historic springs in Baden-Baden. This one is called The Fettquelle just outside the Friedrichsbad. The grotto was built around the spring in the 1870s. The water temperature is about 145 degrees Fahrenheit.
As it turned out, we blended in well in the land of the nude.
Old and young nude. Man and woman together-in-the-same-room-shower-pool nude. Lots of butts, boobs, and Johnsons nude. Or, as we read later in the brochure, "traditionally garment free" nude.
In hindsight, I suppose we could have asked more questions, or read the brochure, or checked with Rick Steves. But I'm glad we didn't because we know what we look like, and the world may not be ready for our kind of beauty. As it turned out, the world — this German world — was ready and that everyone looked pretty much equal without clothes.
As Fabienne pointed out, "some more equal than others."
I had to agree.