Finding Bliss at Its Very Best-Best in Baden-Baden

It really was no way to start a vacation.

Dozens of last-minute chores and a 12-hour flight with our 14-month-old child frankly had frayed our nerves. Before we could tackle our itinerary of cities and museums, we decided it was time to break away from the real world, relax, treat ourselves to soothing dips in a spa, invigorating massages and leisurely walks along bucolic paths. In a word, it was time for Baden-Baden.

As knowledgeable travelers know by now, for centuries this agreeable, gilded hamlet on the Rhine plain on the edge of the Black Forest has been serving as a resort, at first nearly exclusively for royalty and the rich for extended stays and more recently for simply those seeking an escapist week or weekend, like ourselves.

Among those who have taken “the cure” promised in the waters of its legendary thermal springs, who have paraded along its promenades and gamboled and gambled in its hallowed halls have been Napoleon III, Queen Victoria, Cornelius Vanderbilt, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and the Aga Khan, as well as Dostoevsky and Mark Twain. Certainly if it was good enough for that diverse crowd, it was good enough for us.

A la Belle Epoque

Having flowered during the Belle Epoque at the turn of the century, Baden-Baden’s enticing variety of hotels tend to be in the comfortable grandam tradition, more sumptuous than slick, more evocative than exciting.

Given our frayed state, we sought out the most splendid and evocative, the acknowledged queen of the grandams: Brenner’s Park Hotel. Set indeed in its own exquisitely landscaped park bordering the River Oos, the rambling wedding-cake-style hotel of oversize elegant rooms, plush lounges, gourmet dining and, most of all, gracious service has for more than a century set standards for luxury.

And to our further delight the hotel also welcomes children, providing cribs, baby sitters, special menus and a healthy dose of toleration. Opening our window to a balcony overlooking the hotel grounds and the rippling Oos, sipping a glass of wine and nibbling some cheese, we felt much of the strain of the last frantic days--preparing for the trip and the trip itself--begin to drift away. Then it was off to drink in Baden-Baden.

Lichtentaler Allee

One of the more marvelous connecting threads in the antique fabric of the resort town is the Lichtentaler Allee, a pedestrian promenade running along the Oos that over the centuries has been meticulously landscaped with oaks, maples, magnolias and tulip trees, among others, and an equally wide variety of flowering shrubs. Rose gardens and sitting areas along its mile or so length add to its charm.

When various heads of state such as Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm I would summer in Baden-Baden, the allee was a popular site for political encounters and intrigue, and on rare occasion, assassination attempts. Though according to gossip, much more common amid the shadows of the trees and shrubs have been amorous assignations.

For us the Lichtentaler Allee was a most pleasant walk--in the mornings, after lunch, in the early evenings. Its bordering lawns also provided an excellent stomping ground for our child.

Sitting and Sipping

The promenade north leads into the heart of Baden-Baden and the Geotheplatz, with its arcade of exclusive shops and the so-called Kurhaus beyond, a scene of summer concerts. A few steps away is the Romanesque-styled, white-columned Trinkhalle (pump room) where you can sip water from a variety of mineral springs, sit on a sprawling porch and watch the world go by.

For a little more excitement for those so inclined there is, in the evening, Baden-Baden’s world-renowned, government-controlled casino. Even if you are not so inclined, the lavish interiors encrusted with silk tapestries, gilded mirrors, winged cherubs, floral displays and lit with glittering chandeliers are worth a peek.

Also diverting is strolling and window-shopping along the network of pedestrian streets that weave through the resort’s commercial center and lend it such a relaxed air. There are some fine, and expensive, jewelry stores, art galleries, boutiques and, for doting parents and grandparents, excellent toy stores.

Name of the Fame

But what Baden-Baden is most famous for, and for which it is doubly named (and distinguishes it from Badens elsewhere), is of course its baths.

The resort’s two principal public baths are the Caracalla and the Friedrichsbad. On a visit to Baden-Baden a decade ago I had frolicked in the predecessor of the present Caracalla baths, named after the Roman Emperor who nearly 2,000 years ago is said to have sought out the springs to cure his rheumatism.

The Caracalla offered when I last visited--as it does now in expanded, more opulent and thematic facilities--the choice of following your moods in a variety of indoor and outdoor pools or, with the consent of a doctor, taking a prescribed treatment, including mud baths and whirlpools.

This time for my wife and me it was the older, more ornate neo-Renaissance Friedrichsbad, for the so-called Roman-Irish treatment.

At a bargain price of about $12, depending on the exchange rate, the treatment runs about two hours and consists of a series of showers and hot and warm air baths. Then a brusque soap and brush massage is followed by a series of steam baths, a plunge into a cold-water pool and finally, lounging in what amounts to a large marble hot tub and a swim in a much larger round pool under a magnificent dome.

Separate Bathing Times

As in Roman times, the treatment, lounging and swimming in the Friedrichsbad is strictly in the nude, with separate times for men and women--and times also for mixed bathing. It ends with a rest period in a quiet, subdued room where you are wrapped by an attendant in sheets and blankets and laid out on a cushioned slab. I wallowed in it all--and when wrapped, immediately fell asleep.

When I eventually woke up I felt that at last I was on vacation. Baden-Baden and the baths had performed their magic.

With my wife and child outside the Friedrichsbad, I strolled slowly back to the hotel, almost everything in Baden-Baden happily being in walking distance.

On the way we stopped to each get an ice cream cone to savor along the Lichtentaler Allee. It was right before dinner, but after all, we were on vacation.