Side note: before we got on the A5 autobahn (where no one pays attention to the speed limit and everyone drives like bats out of hell), we stopped in a small town to fuel up. I went into the gas station and asked if they accepted credit cards (the truth is a lot of places don't accept credit cards...only cash). The lady there asked me to repeat several times and I've noticed this before...that people don't immediately get what I say. So I must be saying this wrong in German...I thought it was "Nemen Sie credit karten?". So I got back in the car and looked it up in my handy little German dictionary that I bought back in 1972 when I was working at the Olympics in Munich. Guess what I found? Nothing! The word for "credit card" in English did not exist in the dictionary at that time...it just wasn't commonly used. It makes you realize how things have changed...and another one of those things that you take for granted.
Back to today. The drive to Baden Baden was about 65 km and was to have taken a little over an hour to get there...going on the autobahn, but somewhere around Offenburg, traffic on the autobahn came to a dead stop. Everyone was getting out of their car to look to see what was going on ahead. So we turned off the car and waited about 20-30 min. During that time we saw a guy taking a leak on the cement wall in the middle of the autobahn...not the least bit concerned, and for some reason several guys came up to me, sitting in the passenger seat in the car...and started talking to me. One guy was on a motorcycle and another guy got out of his car and came over....they both asked me (of course in German) if I knew what was going on and if I had heard anything on the radio about it. I thought...do I look like a friggin' truck driver? Why should I know?...further more, there were about 50,000 trucks all lined up and stopped in the far right (slow) lane. I don't know why they didn't ask those guys. Anyway, I told them in German my common line of "Ich verstehen nur ein bisschen Deutch" (I understand only a little German), but they both kept on talking to me. One guy finished with "Even though we can't go anywhere, it's a beautiful (shon...with an umlaut) day". I think it's a problem that when I speak something, I can say it without much of a foreign accent...it's just that I can't understand everything, but when people hear me talk in German, they think then that I will understand more. It's a bit confusing for everyone...including myself!
So back to the autobahn...we saw several cars go ripping by us in the far left lane (which was empty)...only the cars were going in reverse. It turns out they were going back to the exit off the autobahn...just a short ways behind us. So we decided...what the hell. We went in reverse and literally squeezed in between 2 enormous trucks. Our Volvo was beeping like crazy. Can't remember if I have told you. This car we have rented is amazing. Among it's many tricks, it beeps if you are getting too close to a wall, car, person, the grass...it just starts beeping like crazy to tell you you better stop or watch carefully what you're doing.
So we got off of the exit of the autobahn and onto a smaller highway and headed north. Gwendolyn was all mixed up with this (she only likes the autobahn) so when we got to the first little village (name unknown), we pulled over and tried to figure out where we were and our game plan. A guy pulled in behind us & was programming his GPS so I asked him how to get to Baden Baden taking the back roads and he said that it was very slow and not so good. But we chose to continue on the slower way because at least we were moving...and the traffic on the autobahn was at a dead stop for a long time.
So the next little town had a gasthous so I went inside to ask for help. There was a little bar attached to the gasthous and the owner/bartender was in there along with 5 or 6 men, drinking beer (this was about 10:30 AM). I asked the owner if he spoke English and he said no so I asked in German how to get to Baden Baden. One of the guys in the bar stepped up and attempted to tell me in broken English how to get there. He asked someone else for help with English, but no one spoke it. So he was very nice and told me in some English, some German to go straight ahead on the road, to turn right at the bridge, etc. He told me to go to this town and that town and finally he got a piece of paper and started writing down the towns to go through. It took quite awhile but he finally got it all down and I understood it all. I thanked him profusely and was folding up the map and told him in German "Unsere GPS is nicht so gut" (our GPS isn't very good). He laughed, I thanked him again in German, and headed towards the door. As I was leaving I heard all the other men laughing hysterically...and what they said in German was "All of that...and she speaks good German!". They thought that was very funny that this guy tried so hard to speak English to me and then because I could deliver a line without an accent (again) they thought I was fluent in German. Boy, Leo and I laughed about that for quite awhile...and those old boys were having a good time with that one, too!
Well, we continued on the small winding roads through a bunch of small towns...all very scenic. One town was Ringelbach and said it was founded in 1070 !!! Holy crimony! According to Mr. History, that was before the 100 years war, and just about the same time as Charlemagne!
Here are some sights along the way:
Along the way we saw this antique store...these places are really hard to find and I really have wanted to go into one...but haven't found one open. This one also was a "for you geschlossen!" (closed).
We passed through some really pretty areas with tons of vineyards. This one looked like a patchwork quilt. Click on it to enlarge it:
The clouds were amazing today:
More vineyards:
We saw this directional sign and could identify with it's confusion today:
So on and on we went. Blah, blah, blah. Finally 4 1/2 hours after we left the house, we arrived in Baden Baden (a trip that should only take 1 hour). So crazy Gwendolyn took us through the city...it was good sized and lots of traffic. We stopped to get a sandwich to go and Leo unknowingly parked in a bus stop...and got kicked out and had to circle back to pick me up. Also Gwendolyn had us driving the wrong way down a one way street, and also driving on several sidewalks where it was pedestrian only. So Leo at one point parked half on the sidewalk and I got out to ask where we should park to go to the therme (spa). We circled around the city several times...and one time we went into a hospital parking lot...we had to take a ticket and then we got stuck in the garage...blah blah blah....it was not a fun drive. I think Leo could have easily turned around and just headed back, but finally we found the parking garage and got to the spa.
By this time it was 3:00...so we stayed until a bit after 5:00. In Baden Baden, they have 12 thermal springs and each day 211,400 gallons of water 156 degrees F. rise from it. It was a nice spa but the least favorite of the other ones we've been to. They had pools with water cascading down walls and fountains and if you stood under them, it was as if Brunhilda was pounding you. Some of the water jet sprays were nice...not quite so forceful. If you stood under those, just right, it would hit your neck and feel like it was a massage. Then if you moved around a bit you could get your neck rubbed in a different place according to where you slightly leaned or slightly moved....sort of like a cow scratching himself on a fence!! Our favorite place at this spa was an area with individual seats (tiled)...you sit down and there is a curved wall that circles you. While seated, water jets from where you sit start to bubble out...all 58 water jets per seat! So each person had a zillion bubbles all around them.
We went into an infusion room with a saline mist that you inhaled while sitting in there and also another room with a eucalyptus mist going. So we left the spa about 5:30 and we were glad to get out of the hustle bustle of Baden Baden and back on the autobahn to make some good time heading back to the house. But again those best laid plans weren't there. Gwendolyn had us get off the autobahn only about 15 km down the road. She took us over to a parallel highway that was much slower and Leo wasn't too happy about it. A bit later we could see that again there was stopped traffic on the autobahn...in both north and south bound lanes...so Gwen redeemed herself. Finally, we were rerouted back to the autobahn and we made up some time. Leo decided to kick it into gear and go like the Germans and at one point I looked over and saw the speedometer at 160 km/hr....that's about 96 miles per hour! We could see the north bound lane on the other side stopped and traffic was backed up for about 40 km...at a dead stop. I don't know what the cause of the mess was all day.
Our original plan was to go back up to Baden Baden tomorrow and do the other spa up there...believe it or not this one is nude only...men and women are separated on Thursday so we thought we'd give it a try. But after seeing the traffic problem all day, we didn't want to sit in a car tomorrow for another 10 hours...and most likely we saved ourselves some embarrassment of not only not knowing what was proper etiquette in the spa, but also not knowing what what going on and standing there nude ...just not a good combination for all involved! So we're going to plan B tomorrow.
Got back close to the house here and went to a different gasthaus with a restaurant and had a very nice meal there. They even had nicely folded flowery napkins (party hats, Laura!)
Oh, here's a sneaky picture I took out the window of the restaurant. There was a group of carpet pissers. I still hope to get a photo of one of them zipping around a curve in the road...they go so fast and then lean into the turns.
So we didn't get back to the house til 8:30 and it was already dark. Here's what it looks like at night....about 100 yards before arriving at the house. I think this is why it's called the Black Forest!
Location:Going to Baden Baden and back
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