Whew, it is Friday. What a week it has been. My father passed away, so I took a few days off from blogging.
I am going to share our weekend in France and The Black Forest of Germany.
Next week, I will share our time in Stockholm.
Then, I will be going back to the US for two weeks, so the blog will be on vacation. Kind of like when the horses took a six week holiday, the blog will be taking two week holiday.
Let's get to it, shall we?
Colmar
Wow! It was beautiful and quaint. We wanted to go for the section that is known as "Little Venice".
BUT first, there is a Statue of Liberty. It is on TripAdvisor as a thing to see, but wasn't on our list of things to see. However, we just happened to drive past it.
The start of Little Venice
We arrived around 8pm, so we just walked around in the dark for a bit. We found an Irish Bar to have some beers and watch some soccer.
Colmar is also pretty well known for their wine. So I had to try some. :)
The next morning we woke pretty early and headed out to see Old Town Colmar, the shops, and The Museum of Little Toys and Trains!
Nature
The huge park in the center of Colmar!
Fountain
Mmmm, a prezel shop! It was so cute.
After this, we found an entire CHRISTMAS store! So we were able to buy our bulb.
Some pictures of Old Town
Day time in Little Venice.
Then, it was time for the museum! We paid 5 euro each and entered into a serious stage of nostalgia.
We played checkers. Blake shared this "rule" that I have never heard of. But with that "rule" he won pretty fast. We still had fun thought :).
Old school legos.
Polly Pockets!!! This was my favorite toy as a child.
All the barbies.
Gaming systems!
There were a bunch of dolls, but they were creepy. I will spare you the photos. The entire third floor was trains. I was mesmerized!
It was amazing. It made me want to play with trains!
Lunchtime was up next on the agenda. On our way to eat we found a wine shop and bought two bottles. The grapes are grown about 3km from where we bought the wine! I am excited to try them. :)
We got pizza! While we ate this pizza, we realized that every place we have been too, except for Cologne, we have eaten pizza. So far, Heidelberg was the best! #WeLovePizza
We hopped in the car and started the 1hr 15min journey to Baden Baden!
Awe, Haribo on the pillows. It felt good to be back in Germany! It was so crazy that within a 2 mile span people speak complete different languages.
We stayed in that off white-ish colored building on the right. Hotel Rathausglockel. Rick Steves recommended it, and if you mentioned him when you stayed you got 10% off. #ThanksRick
The hotel gives you directions to follow to get there, because if you follow your GPS it will not work. :P
IT was lovely. It had 12-15 rooms, the staff was sweet and friendly. It had parking down the road. It offered free breakfast. We enjoyed our stay!
We explored around a little bit on Saturday.
So many stairs!
A church.
Another picture of our hotel.
Tree lined streets!
I love that there are so many pedestrian only zones in Europe.
We found the casino! Rick mentions this casino in the Germany book. We wanted to go, but we felt too underdressed. It was a very classy establishment.
In the yard outside the casino there was a live band and several tables with food tents set up. We listened to music, ate sausages with bread and had a few drinks!
A place for the children to play while the parents drink and listen to music!
We went back to our hotel, rested up a bit. Then headed to the biergarten to watch Deutschland play.
Beer, soccer, prezels!
Blake enjoying a beer!
After the AMAZING game, and a Deutschland win we went to sleep. We had a special morning planned for Sunday.
Sunday morning we were off to The Friedrichsbad, a Roman-Irish bath spa.
"The changing temperatures and the healing thermal water in the various baths have a regenerative effect on body and soul."
That is a direct quote from their website. We were ready! Well, there is one catch! The entire experience is done completely nude. Now, being an American, nudity isn't something we enjoy, so I was a little freaked. But I read a few other blogs of people who had been, and everyone said it is no big deal. That you, and everyone else are nude. You keep to yourself and you just relax. So that's what we did! Men and women bathe separately on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. The rest of the days are mixed. It is a 17 step process.
You can buy 3 different packages. We chose the highest package, which gave us the 17 step bath, plus a soap & brush massage, as well as a cream massage. It allowed us 4 hours in the spa.
They supply everything. Shoes, towels, soap, locks for your locker, even hair dryers for when you're finished,
If you are interested in the 17 steps, you can read them all here.
I will just share a few of my favorite steps.
You shower at least 3 or 4 times throughout. And these showers are something you dream about. Huge rain shower heads. Warm thermal water. It was just the best 4 showers I've ever taken.
The soap and brush massage was, odd. It felt good, but even with the soft brush it was still rough. I can't imagine what the hard brush would've felt like.
My favorite step was the Thermal Steam bath. It was just the most incredible thing I have ever experienced.
These are some pictures from flickr.com and The Friedrichsbad website that show stage 11. I can't even tell you how amazing it was. You actually forgot you were naked.
The second to last step, is relaxing. The workers come wrap you up in warm towels and blankets and you actually sleep for 30 minutes.
It was a perfect morning! We utilized about 3 of the 4 hours we were allotted. I have read that some people do it quicker, and others longer. We just did the recommended time at each step, and finished in about 3 hours.
I am glad we did it, and I HIGHLY recommend anyone who finds themselves in Baden-Baden to also do it!
After our baths we headed home.
We saw some rainbows :).
Ciao! We are off to Stockholm this evening.
The start of Little Venice
We arrived around 8pm, so we just walked around in the dark for a bit. We found an Irish Bar to have some beers and watch some soccer.
Colmar is also pretty well known for their wine. So I had to try some. :)
The next morning we woke pretty early and headed out to see Old Town Colmar, the shops, and The Museum of Little Toys and Trains!
Nature
The huge park in the center of Colmar!
Fountain
Mmmm, a prezel shop! It was so cute.
After this, we found an entire CHRISTMAS store! So we were able to buy our bulb.
Some pictures of Old Town
Day time in Little Venice.
Then, it was time for the museum! We paid 5 euro each and entered into a serious stage of nostalgia.
We played checkers. Blake shared this "rule" that I have never heard of. But with that "rule" he won pretty fast. We still had fun thought :).
Old school legos.
Polly Pockets!!! This was my favorite toy as a child.
All the barbies.
Gaming systems!
There were a bunch of dolls, but they were creepy. I will spare you the photos. The entire third floor was trains. I was mesmerized!
It was amazing. It made me want to play with trains!
Lunchtime was up next on the agenda. On our way to eat we found a wine shop and bought two bottles. The grapes are grown about 3km from where we bought the wine! I am excited to try them. :)
We got pizza! While we ate this pizza, we realized that every place we have been too, except for Cologne, we have eaten pizza. So far, Heidelberg was the best! #WeLovePizza
We hopped in the car and started the 1hr 15min journey to Baden Baden!
Awe, Haribo on the pillows. It felt good to be back in Germany! It was so crazy that within a 2 mile span people speak complete different languages.
We stayed in that off white-ish colored building on the right. Hotel Rathausglockel. Rick Steves recommended it, and if you mentioned him when you stayed you got 10% off. #ThanksRick
The hotel gives you directions to follow to get there, because if you follow your GPS it will not work. :P
IT was lovely. It had 12-15 rooms, the staff was sweet and friendly. It had parking down the road. It offered free breakfast. We enjoyed our stay!
We explored around a little bit on Saturday.
So many stairs!
A church.
Another picture of our hotel.
Tree lined streets!
I love that there are so many pedestrian only zones in Europe.
We found the casino! Rick mentions this casino in the Germany book. We wanted to go, but we felt too underdressed. It was a very classy establishment.
In the yard outside the casino there was a live band and several tables with food tents set up. We listened to music, ate sausages with bread and had a few drinks!
A place for the children to play while the parents drink and listen to music!
We went back to our hotel, rested up a bit. Then headed to the biergarten to watch Deutschland play.
Beer, soccer, prezels!
Blake enjoying a beer!
After the AMAZING game, and a Deutschland win we went to sleep. We had a special morning planned for Sunday.
Sunday morning we were off to The Friedrichsbad, a Roman-Irish bath spa.
"The changing temperatures and the healing thermal water in the various baths have a regenerative effect on body and soul."
That is a direct quote from their website. We were ready! Well, there is one catch! The entire experience is done completely nude. Now, being an American, nudity isn't something we enjoy, so I was a little freaked. But I read a few other blogs of people who had been, and everyone said it is no big deal. That you, and everyone else are nude. You keep to yourself and you just relax. So that's what we did! Men and women bathe separately on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. The rest of the days are mixed. It is a 17 step process.
You can buy 3 different packages. We chose the highest package, which gave us the 17 step bath, plus a soap & brush massage, as well as a cream massage. It allowed us 4 hours in the spa.
They supply everything. Shoes, towels, soap, locks for your locker, even hair dryers for when you're finished,
If you are interested in the 17 steps, you can read them all here.
I will just share a few of my favorite steps.
You shower at least 3 or 4 times throughout. And these showers are something you dream about. Huge rain shower heads. Warm thermal water. It was just the best 4 showers I've ever taken.
The soap and brush massage was, odd. It felt good, but even with the soft brush it was still rough. I can't imagine what the hard brush would've felt like.
My favorite step was the Thermal Steam bath. It was just the most incredible thing I have ever experienced.
These are some pictures from flickr.com and The Friedrichsbad website that show stage 11. I can't even tell you how amazing it was. You actually forgot you were naked.
The second to last step, is relaxing. The workers come wrap you up in warm towels and blankets and you actually sleep for 30 minutes.
It was a perfect morning! We utilized about 3 of the 4 hours we were allotted. I have read that some people do it quicker, and others longer. We just did the recommended time at each step, and finished in about 3 hours.
I am glad we did it, and I HIGHLY recommend anyone who finds themselves in Baden-Baden to also do it!
After our baths we headed home.
We saw some rainbows :).
Ciao! We are off to Stockholm this evening.
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