We woke bright and early, and Leon serenaded me with Happy Birthday, of which I was a bit sleepy to appreciate! He snuck along a beautiful shimmery underwear set, and I feel a bit like a sexy robot in it! The reason for the early doors, was as Google shows the early time is the way to beat the crowds to the world famous spa, of which has been one of the final things we need to complete the full experience of Baden-Baden: Friedrichsbad, the 17step compulsory naked, ritualistic spa. Mum & Dad have kindly offered to buy us the full monty, so to speak, of a brush down, and cream massage, followed by a meal. What a lovely gift!
On the breaky buffet, I had plenty of smoked salmon on toast with eggs, and Leon had his normal red meat overload. And we went to the bedroom for a final pep talk to one another. It’s only natural, just human bodies. (And if it’s good enough for Adolf eh!). We saw a few Einhornchen scampering through the tall fir trees from our room, but none up close as of yet.
We stride in to this grand building, with a dual sided staircase leading up to the spa
We are greeted by a man, I say ‘sprachen sie englisch?’ And he says in German, your German is better than my English, and proceeds to instruct me in Deutsch!
So we remove our clothing with trepidation, thinking this could be like one of those dreams that you are naked and no one else is, but it’s actually real! The down side to it being so quiet is that we have no lead to follow from any seasoned naked spa-rers!
We are told to follow the signs into each area and the brushing is in stage 4/5 (Leon and I disagreed on this). We go into the sauna where we soon realise we should have picked up some plastic shoes after the stage 1 shower, as the floor is so hot. In fact everything is very hot. I drink from the water fountain, and the water is hot. The sink that I accidentally brush a boob against is ridiculously hot. So far, burning parts of my body seems to be the order of the day haha! We go onto the brushing area, and get front and back scrubbed to an inch of its life. I like it! Feels very clean and not as weird as you’d think… until they slap you lightly on the bum as a sign that the deed is done.
off we trot to the steam rooms. They are waaay too stuffy for me and I get a bit light headed so we go to the beautiful domed pool area. My oh my this is impressive, and very historical too! Frescos on the ceiling and statues all around. It feels like some kind of utopia, the feeling only exacerbated by the prior burning, scrubbing, and slapping! We get towards what we think is the end, and get handed a lovely warm towel, and look to head to stage 15. The chap scans our chip wrist bands and informs us we have. ‘Cream service’, and points us to another room and takes our towels. The lady in the next room rather curtly tells us we need towels, and Is very impatient! We pop back and get the towels. No they are the wrong towels, we need the sheet we were initially given! So back we go again, and the chap comes with us. They exchange words and the body language says it all. We get ushered back through all the stages (still in the buff, not quite knowing where we are going), and we are back at the beginning. We get parked in a comfy light room with some jasmine tea and told to wait 10 min. They come to collect us, and a very angry seeming German man instructs us up some stairs. I think we must have disturbed his break! I go first, and I have never had cream applied to me so frostily! He is very sharp, and as I go to grab what I thought was my towel, he bellows at me that it is his and mine is over there. We leave the room, and he hollers at me ‘where is your husband?’. How the frick should I know? So off he stomps. I go back down the stairs to the nice chappy, who again, takes my towel and leads me to an empty relaxation room, that has about 15 beds. He takes me to a bed and proceeds to tuck me in!! I feel everso slightly like I’m in a shroud.
20 mins or so later, Leon is brought in, and the same happens to him. Good, I’m glad the angry German cream man didn’t send him for 50 lashes! We then have a con-flab, and laugh about the grumpy masseuse, and leon also thinks it is a bit like a mortuary in here, albeit very peaceful. Our skin is so soft and we feel a million dollars, (after it has been beaten up & slightly abused).
Next we head for our meal at the Caracalla Thermae restaurant next door.
