Baden Baden & Karlsruhe Germany May 08

hello ... you've probably all heard about the heatwave we're currently having in good old London town .. especially last weekend ... but I of course missed this weather phenomomen as I was exploring the Black Forest in good old Germany! my friend Anna and I decided for the bank holiday that we would book the cheapest flight on ryan air and go somewhere random ... and we ended up in the mysterious German Black forest! we couldn't get any accommodation in Baden Baden (the closest town to the airport and the BF) so we stayed in Karlsruhe which is a uni town close to the French border. Karlsruhe is a very pretty post war german town with a lot of interesting architecture and a castle! like all European towns (villages, cities etc) there is a main square which is where all the action is! when we arrived on the Saturday there was a hamburger and fish market in the square ... but no hamburgers or fish to be seen just a lot of truck containers/ends with the sides open and baskets getting filled with whatever produce the truck specialises in. There was this one guy who was selling fruit who lined the side of his 'stage' with about twenty baskets and then just started to fill them with every fruit under the sun available in Germany and then when he finished (it took about 10 mins) people came rushing up to grab the baskets - we thought they were only 10 Euros each (the cheese ones were fifty euros each but you got a lot of amazing cheese) Karlsurhe castle is pretty cool - it is sort of designed around the pattern of the sun's rays and this is also carried on in the city's street layout. for three euros you got entry to the castle (it's a museum now) and the pottery museum (apparently famous from this area) and the market museum (all in German) so we really only went to the museum in the castle but we had a lot of fun there cos there was noone inside as it was a scorcher of a day! we took a lot of pictures with old Greek statues without their arms, legs, noses and other important anatomical features! basically the museum took you through the history of Karlsruhe from day dot until the present day so later on in the museum we had a lot of fun playing dress ups with a selection of very interesting hats and costumes! the most intersting section was the 1920s onwards and Germany (Karlsruhe) in this time, there was a very small section on Hitler and the Holocaust (just about the homosexual prisoners and not any of the others groups which perished in the holocaust (afterthought maybe there were no Jews in Karlsruhe and environs?) but there was this cool Hitler pincushion which sort of brought you back to today! There is also a tower in the castle which we of course climbed for a fantastic view over Karlsruhe and a lovely park .... the park was so enticing we spent a few hours people watching, eating fruit salad and drinking champers until ... the sun went down and we moved back into the shopping mall I do not recommend shopping after an afternoon in the sun and champagne! you end up in the changing room for a long time being brought every single item of clothing in the shop in your size! we ended up falling asleep incredibly early (early start for the flight) so we didn't even make it out to experience the recommended 'hoki tiki' club which was by our hotel Sunday we decided to visit the world famous in Karlsruhe zoo which was really cool cos it had elephants, hippos, lions, a white snowleopard and these amazing polar bears ... we were more excited than the kids but the polar bear was the best part of the zoo as he was right up on the wall where the glass is for us to see in so we were like eye to eye with him then we decided to tackle the black forest ... it took us about two hours to work out how we were going to get there ... we ended up deciding to catch a tram after our train tickets were going to cost 48 Euros return .. so we went to the tram info lady and we got a 24 hour pass for five people for 13 euros and it can be used on the train as well ... so we did end up catching the train (20 mins) to baden baden ... we arrived at the train station in baden baden which is far away for the 'main square' jumped on the first bus and decided to see where it took us! luckily it went to the main square and we had an intersting specialily salad for lunch (imgine a whole roll of luncheon sausage ending up looking like grated cheese and baby gerkins chopped as small as possible on a lettuce leaf) but the people watching was amazing ... everyone was dripping with money (baden baden is a popular spa town with the rich and famous) and all abiding by the rule 'mutton dressed as lamb' after the people started dying down we moved away and went for a walk along a stream which comes out of the BF and is by the first hills of the BF - we ended up in the Atlantis Hotel cafe sipping more champage and enjoying our first piece of authentic Black Forest Gateaux - this cake is amazing! nothing like you get in Woolworths. It has a biscuit base, then chocolate sponge, then the cherrys, then this white creamy stuff a bit like angel delight, then cream and then a fresh cherry! so here we were sipping our champers in the shade and then this couple (older) sitting over and across from us started starring at Anna like full on she's a celebrity starring that we decided to pretend to be celebs (well Anna did and I was just the 'friend') and this kept us amused for a while! we had a quick discover of where our spa was for MOnday, ended up people watching again at an ice cream place, and headed back on the world's most crowded train back to Karlsruhe (these idiots had their bikes in the way of the stairs leading upstairs on the train so everyone was squashed like sardines and it was hot hot and whe were delayed for 30 mins in the middle of nowhere) nothing was open in Karlsruhe being Sunday so we went back to our very nice hotel and watched CNN's coverage of the cyclone in Burma - we didn't even know who our new mayor was in London until we got back) Monday we decided we would hit the Spa early and actually go to a village in the BFand not just baden baden ... we didn't quite make it to the spa until approx noon (early flights and sunshine take it out of you) Baden Baden is a thermal spa town which claims to cure all your ailments in it's healing waters ... there are three spas there but we decided to go to the oldest and most traditional one (no our decision was based on 3.5 hours and a massage for 30 euros instead of 24 euros for a swim and a sauna) BUT with most things I end up doing there is a catch ... this spa was a nudist spa ... so you needed nothing - so Anna and I rock on up thinking we'll be ok with the nudist thing - we did share a room for a few months not so long ago we've seen enough to not be worried ... so we gingerly walk into the changing rooms, trying hard not to giggle and this lady shows us what to do and has a chat in French ... so far so good, we were in a changing room - but what do you do with your stuff, so I go out the door on the otherside of our booth to investigate and there were lockers and some had towels in them - so we grabbed the towels and undressed ... we then had another fit of giggles and had to regain composure as these old ladies were getting annoyed with us before we had a communal shower ... then we were off ... shower, hot room, hotter room sleep (this one was 68degs) then shower, sauna, massage, sauna, swim, swim, spa, swim, shower, plunge, rub down, moisturise, sleep then relax ... it was bliss - Monday is also the day that men and women are segregated which was an added bonus of us going we only had to see one man and that was in the communal pool at stage eleven! then it was back out into the sunshine - it was over 25 degs the whole weekend :) we had a few hours to spare before we had to be at te airport but nothing seemed to be going near any cute BF villages so we donned our channel, gucci and prada and hit the shops ... we tried on a lot of dresses! walked around baden baden then caught the bus to the airport where we put on our London clothes and tried some of the local grape cider in the airport restaurant while waiting for our flight ... which was late and before we knew it we were back in Sunny London all this week has been hot, not worn a jumper or trousers all week or even a jacket it's been greattoday has been hot too they thought it might get up to 28 degrees but when Em and I were at the park earlier it was shady and breezy (we're next to the Thames) and then a big grey cloud rolled over and it was thunder and lightening time ... maybe tomorrow will be today's weather prediction....? hope you're well and not too hot/cold whereever you are! lots of love, Kylie x ps here are some pictures (now I have my sparkely new laptop I can insert pics into emails easily than how I was emailing for the last two years!)