Gasthaus Lohr Baden-Baden

... and bought our train tickets home. Mine was round trip but I had to get a ticket for Lincoln. Without the fine attached, it was only 5 Euros. I really wish I had known ahead of time!

I had a really nice day visiting with my brother. I haven't seen him since I left Canada back in October, so it was almost a full year. Wow, time flies! He headed back to Paris and will continue on to Barcelona in a few days so I am a bit jealous - I absolutely love Barcelona!

He Said:

Well, since I was the one who wasn't too sure about spending the night in Strasbourg, I’m pretty much the ******* here. I had a few reasons: 1) The ride from Reims to Munich was set to be a long one, so I thought it might be a good idea to get even closer than Strasbourg, 2) I was really curious to check out a new city in Germany such as Ulm, and 3) I was under the impression that Strasbourg was predominately an industrial-type ...

Hablar de Estrasburgo es hablar de la Gran Isla en la que se asienta su centro histórico, abrazada por el rio Ill, afluente del Rhin. Es uno de los cascos medievales mejor conservados de Europa y su catedral es una de las mas altas del mundo. La recorrimos en barco por sus canales y paseamos por el barrio de la Petite France, el mas pinturesco de Estrasburgo y el que tiene mas canales.

Last leg of the European jaunt and we've decided to try out the Black Forest...the bad weather was the final nail in the coffin and after 3 days of dripping foggy weather, we decided to jack in the caravan and head to Octoberfest, but more of that later.

So a quick trip to a 500 yr old stud farm started by King Wilhelm the 1st, where they breed beautiful Black Forest horses and Arabs then, Baden Baden to take in the sights of this thermal spa town and ...

All right, so we did the naked frolicking in the baths, went cuckoo over cuckoo clocks, drove all over the not so black, Black Forest and visited an open air cultural museum near Gutach, which was weird because it was suppose to be a museum about how life was back in yesteryear for Germans. And it was for the most part.

As I walked through a typical ...

... and got lost trying to find others. Our feet were tired and our minds were overflowing with information. The Zevisit audiotours were interesting and informative, but we all agreed two in one day was too many. We decided to take a tram back to the centre and browsed in a few shops on our way back to the car. Then we spotted an ice cream cafe and decided it would be nice to sit and relax with a deliciously decadent ice cream dessert.

We caught the wrong train and wound up in Gengenbach. While we were waiting for a train back we met a lady who told us the town had a beautiful old-town section. So we went discovering again. After a good look around we stopped at a pub while we were waiting for the next train and got talking to the owner. Turns out he'd been to Australia on holiday, so we had a good time talking to him until it was time to go.

... checking out a church and a casino where we donated some euros in some slot machines. We found a fun restaurant/beer hall on the sidewalk that served rostis and was the greatest people watching place. We moved inside and back outside with the rainstorm. Tomorrow is the big day at the baths?????????????????????? Day 2 in Baden-Baden Last night's storm was quite a thrill. We hunkered down with the locals. They were smart enough to bring their umbrella's,we were not.... Today we ...

... blockade
-all the tolls (~30E one way)
epic excursion to the Zenith (highway, pointy fence, cow ****)
Queens of the Stone Age at the Zenith
-missed 2/3 of their 1.5 hour set
-small venue
tucked in by 12 (sneaking in through the window of the hotel due to max 2 per room)

Let me wrap up our time in Baden-Baden...in addition to the Roman bath ruins, modern spa treatments, luxury shopping, casino, horsetrack, and cultural performances, there is a castle ruin just 8 minutes up the hill from the center of town. For Tracy and me, this was an quite a fascinating experience. For most Europeans, it is about as exciting as a backyard tool shed. To illustrate this point, we were able to park right at ...