Very nice-nice…

Today we took the 40 minute trip from Heidelberg down to Baden-Baden or, literally translated, Bath-Bath. It was B’s mom who really wanted to go – I had my doubts. It turns out we have a new favorite city in Germany. Baden-Baden seems to have everything: museums, mountains, natural springs, a spa and the most beautiful pedestrian area we’ve seen yet.

When we first arrived, we got lost and went to a restaurant in the middle of nowhere. As we tried to leave, we got carried away and started four-wheeling up a steep, snow covered incline. After about 20 minutes of white knuckle driving on B’s part, we managed to turn around and make it to the city center where we found a great parking garage. You would think the spaces were designed for people to park unicycles but we wedged the family truckster (Chrysler minivan) in and managed to squeeze (literally) out the sides.
We then walked around the pedestrian area and were blown away by the beauty of the buildings and the diversity of restaurants, bars and other businesses. Even though it was cold, there were a lot of folks in the street. The small cities are giving us a bit of Spring fever as we can’t imagine how beautiful they must be with nicer weather. Virtually all of the beer gardens are closed, the trees are bare and the weather hasn’t been stellar. With all that, these places manage to retain their charm.
As usual, after walking around for a good while we ended up in a café for hot chocolate and cake. This time I captured photographic evidence of our overindulgence. The cake gets an average score of 9 out of ten (we ordered 3 kinds). The hot chocolate didn’t hold a candle to the stuff we drank last week in Speyer.

On the way back, we got stuck in a wicked traffic jam around Karlruhe. Other than the kids putting Edelweiss (from the Sound of Music) on a seemingly endless loop, we made it through alright. It looks like I’m going to have that song in my head for a good while. Better than "Funky Town". Oops! Now you're going to have a song stuck in your head.