Since my summer is pretty much shot down, what with three months of recovery to go through, thought I’d load up some photos from the trip to Germany earlier in the year.
This is Baden Baden
which got its start as an R&R spot for Roman soldiers stationed nearby at Marseilles. All those hot springs, ya know. It pretty much stayed an R&R spot over the next several centuries, finding itself in competition with lots of other Badens that sprang up throughout Germany. To make sure you went to the original, they changed their name to Baden Baden, so there.
Beautiful place, chock full of spas and hotels and a casino and the requisite ruins:
It was Christmas Eve and, naturally, there was a Christmas market ongoing:
where we bought nougat cakes from this French guy:
The Kaiser liked to hang out here:
Jethro Tull??? Damn, can’t go, I’ll be back in the States:
Baden Baden is purt near France, something I discovered when my German GPS decided to exact a little Axis revenge by directing me in the completely opposite direction I needed to go. First clue was a sign that said “Bienvenue a Alsace-Lorraine.” Oopsy. So, turn around and began a comedy of stopping at every little German gas station in every little German village deep in werewolf mountains where hump-backed proprietors could only point in a general direction when I queried, “Heilbronn?” and merrily careening through moonlit S-curves and sheer drops until I finally stumbled across Schwaigern, where my nephew Steffan:
lives, and I knew my way back. Didn’t stop because there are no restaurants in Schwaigern and everyone was at the house waiting on us for Christmas Eve dinner, anyway.
Inconsiderate Americans.