Baden-Baden is a well-known spa town. It’s almost the ubiquitous spa town. Does it do anything else? Does it have any other claim to fame? So when I started writing my Bath Book, a travelogue of some kind about hot water, steam and bathing culture, Baden-Baden was the first place to come to mind. But … More Is Baden-Baden past its best?
In the last four posts, I’ve talked about the four spas I visited on my train adventure around Germany’s UNESCO Great European Spa Towns and now it’s time to talk about the journeys between them – because visiting those four spas required thirteen trains, four buses and three trips to Frankfurt. A few years ago, … More Germany’s Great European Spa Towns by 13 trains and 4 buses
The last of the four spas I visited on my Great German Spa Towns trip and let’s get the spoiler out of the way early – it was probably my favourite. Bad Ems is a tiny place that doesn’t instinctively feel like the place to put an interesting spa with a unique feature but it … More I tried Emser Therme’s naked riverside sauna
Next on the Great German Spa Towns adventure is KissSalis, in Bad Kissingen. So far I’ve been to Baden-Baden’s Caracalla Therme, which sits on the spa/waterpark borderline, and Friedrichsbad, which is as close to Roman as you’re going to find in 2025. And now, after a bus, three trains and a stroll, I made it … More KissSalis Therme: the one with the mushrooms
When I went to Baden-Baden, I was expecting the famous spa town to be a bit like Budapest, in that it would have a different spa on every street corner and I’d need to spend at least three or four days to work through a good selection, so I was quite disappointed to find there … More A swimwear day at Friedrichsbad, Baden-Baden
It’s time to start the German Spa Town adventure posts! I’m going to do the spas themselves first and then the journey and then the towns and so first up is Baden-Baden’s Caracalla Therme. Caracalla Therme opened in 1985 although you’d think it’s under a decade old – it doesn’t look like it’s about to … More An evening at Caracalla Therme
And at last it’s going home day! The reality of this trip was almost as long as the blog posts about it – by the time I woke up in Warsaw on that last morning, to the first rain I’d seen since my first day in Berlin, it all felt so long ago I could … More Eras Train Tour: Monday in Warsaw – the end of an Era(s)
It is now October and this journey started in July and I’m still writing about it! Twice a week blogs mean eleven-day trips take a while, I guess. But it’s my last full day! It’s the day after I finally went to the Eras tour and I started it late and lazy with a quest … More Eras Train Tour: Sunday in Warsaw
By Saturday, after eight days on the go, I was kind of tired. My hotel was too hot, I’d glimpsed four cities over the last week and today I was finally going to see Taylor Swift, after possessing an Eras tour ticket for nearly thirteen months. I could have quite happily stayed home. But I … More Eras Train Tour: Saturday in Warsaw (and ERAS!)
I woke up on my last morning of train travel across Poland with a sort of sense of regret – not that I regretted finally reaching Warsaw on my eighth day of this adventure, but that I didn’t have longer in the really nice hotel room in Łódź! After the tiny apartment with unreliable water … More Eras Train Tour: Lodz to Warsaw
I Am A Polar Bear 