The fireplace at our hotel was elaborate:

The streets are narrow. Stairs to the other rooms and rooftop terrace are narrow, too. We were lucky to sleep on the main floor, and not carry our luggage up there.

We ate dinner outside. Speaking of which, the weather has been surprisingly warm and humid. I suppose with all the plant life, one expects humidity!

Clare met a tall dark knight in the wine cellar of the hotel.

This is the front of one of the bath houses.

Things we did not investigate: Baden-Baden is famous for a casino. We would not be allowed there during gambling times because we did not bring the correct clothing, especially shoes. What a weird concept! The area is also famous for horse racing, and statues of horses decorate the streets. Most are white, but we found one that had been painted. We heard that many Russian people visit here, and also that they own a lot of the businesses. We did not hear any Russian being spoken, but a couple that we met on the rooftop (biologists from Florida) heard that language when they went to the baths.

Our original plan for today was to go to the “best” mineral museum on Earth. However, way back in Colorado, Brian and I talked about a town and thought it was the same one, but Clare’s was spelled with a burg and Brian’s was spelled berg (or the other way around). Since we were mostly talking, not writing options, neither of us noticed the two possibilities. So – today in Baden-Baden was an unplanned adventure. We may yet make it to the mineral museum later in the trip in the proper burg (or berg).

Baden-Baden (like New York – New York) is deep in history, from ancient to Roman through today. A hot spring made this an attractive spot for humans, and many “bath” houses still exist. With all the fountains, and the canal-like river, it could almost be called water-water instead of bath-bath.

Our stroll took us to a couple of churches that reminded Clare of the trip to France with her mom in 2003. She wanted to see places important to Catholic history as well as her own history, so our trip bounced us from cathedral to chapel. Mom prayed in all those buildings, but I took pictures (especially of the confessionals, because, well, I was taking pictures in churches). Here are two from Baden-Baden:

The churches also reminded us of our trip with the kids to England and Ireland, where we took pictures of pipe organs for our neighbor Jim who plays organ:

Brian was looking at the walls of the church, which seemed like they might have been made out of the stone covers for saint’s or knight’s tombs. Old. Worn down. With symbols that reminded him of certain movies:

And, unbelievably, one housed a knight’s tomb, with the skeleton below it!

Maybe it was a saint. That church had a dark, strange fresco opposite the tomb:

Yes, we noticed the skull.

The stained glass windows were astonishingly modern in the other church:

We also found a rose garden, open to wanderers.

While we were wandering, we saw a blue heron in the stream, just like home.

We also saw a castle in the distance:

The center part of town also had a giant sculpture depicting water jugs from Roman times:

Here are other views of this interesting village. An underground tunnel for cars has diverted traffic to make the place more relaxing and quiet. A wide variety of trees line the stream, and hotels are everywhere.

As mentioned in the last post, the train that we planned to take from Koblenz after lunch was delayed by at least an hour. After a look at the yellow train schedule posted on every platform, we walked quickly to another platform to get on a slower train to Frankfurt so that we could continue our journey south to Baden-Baden. Arriving in Frankfurt, looking once again at the schedule, we found a train leaving in 7 minutes that would get us to Karlsruhe. We were not sure that our pass would be valid for that train because it was a TGV high-speed (French) train and we had not planned on using these in Germany. But it seemed logical and we quickly got over to the platform but the train was not there. Upon looking at the overhead electronic sign, we found the TGV on the adjacent track on the same platform. The conductor was already signaling final boarding and we quickly boarded the train and found seats. Most seats were reserved but only for portions of the train’s route, which went to Paris with only a handful of stops.

The TGV is one of the fastest trains in Europe, routinely achieving speeds in excess of 300 km/hr. Our trip to Karlsruhe required a bit over an hour, with a top speed of 280 km/hr. DB (German) trains are about as fast on this route, but we would have had to wait longer in Frankfurt. Our pass was good, although the conductor had some questions about our written log (which is required for Eurail pass holders). Although there was WiFi on the train, we had no login because we were not customers of the TGV, and had not downloaded their app.

We knew that Karlsruhe is close to Baden-Baden and were looking forward to getting off and finding out when we could get to our hotel as it was past 6pm. Then the door to exit the train would not open. We were at the front of a long line of people waiting to exit our car and the electronic door switch did not activate. It was a frustrating couple of minutes as Brian continued to press the button to open the door and we contemplated the possibility that the train would continue to Strasbourg, France in another minute. Finally, the door opened and we were out on the platform.

Upon reading the train schedule, we found a train to Baden-Baden leaving in 3 minutes. We raced to the platform (only a couple flights of stairs and a short walk in the tunnel under the tracks) and arrived as the train was just getting there. It was a small, yellow, two-car train that was probably one of the slowest in Germany. It stopped at every station on the way to Baden-Baden. There were no electronic signs so we had to listen to the announcements (in German) carefully to determine when to get off. It is only a 27km trip but took 30 minutes. After getting to the station, a fifteen minute bus ride got us to within walking distance of our hotel. After a steep climb up some stairs, we found the Hotel Rathausglöckel (meaning city hall bell). What a journey! This was only possible with a rail pass that allows travel on many company’s trains without tickets or reservations.

I am glad we stayed in a cute village last night, because floating on the Rhine River, you see a ton of cute villages and you want to visit them all! But we were on a boat, headed to Koblenz (where the Moselle River meets the Rhine) and did not get off until then. The Rhine River Valley is beautiful, dotted with castles from many different historic eras, lined with houses, vineyards and train tracks along the edges.

We thought of “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” but this day was about boats, lots of different kinds of boats. Trains, too, many varieties. Some automobiles make it to the shore of the Rhine, but roads in and out of the valley are few, and bridges across it are even fewer. Where villagers need to cross the large, fast flowing river, they have ferry boats that take them, sometimes with their cars but mostly not.

We took many photographs, but will share only a few. We synchronized the times on the cameras and can no longer tell who took which picture.

The train we planned to take from Koblenz was delayed at least an hour because of a break in the line. So, we took a series of slower trains to get to Baden-Baden (hence more verbiage for you). We went back through the Rhine River Valley, and I can now say with confidence it is much better on the boat. You have to be fairly quick to get good pictures of the castles from the boat. You have be light speed to do so from the train (and this is the slower train!). Also, on the train you have to deal with reflections from the windows, while on the boat that is not a problem.