Friedrichsbad has lost its mojo
Friedrichsbad is an institution in Baden Baden. It's 150 years old, a really monumental building and quite famous - Mark Twain seems to have claimed that in five minutes you forget the time, in ten you forget the world. Or something.
The best thing about it is that you don't have to prepare. You can just roam about in Baden, maybe have lunch in one of its overpriced restaurants, then just pop into Friedrichsbad. You'll get some slippers when you enter and that's all you will be wearing for the next 3 hours. Ok, you'll also get a sheet to put under yourself in the sauna and a 10x10 inch piece of fabric to sit on in the hammam - which you will both discard upon exiting those room.
The less good things are that it is an old Roman-Irish bath, with almost no bubbles, it's 100% inside and there is strictly no catering if you get a bit hungry.
It has two almost identical wings, each with its entrance, locker room, big room with some huge showers and a cold water pool, a warm sauna, a hot one, a hammam and a room with a warm/hot water pool. One day per week it's gender segregated but everybody still meets in the central, monumental round room, with 20m high ceilings, where there is a round cool-water pool and a shallow warm water one with three bubble spots -the only jacuzzis in the whole facility.
They boast that they spend no energy on heating, not even on pumping the thermal water which comes naturally to the surface. Even the hammam is (seemingly the only one in the world) heated by the thermal water which you can see pouring down a wall. And that water in the pools is renewed continuously.
So not a partying place, patrons are older than in Sinsheim and there for the therapeutic effects of mineral water (and likely also for the full nudity feature). It's usually spotless and quite nice to relax and at the exit you can splash all your body with generous amounts of body lotion. You can also have tea or take a nap in separate, quiet rooms. You can also get a 8 min soap and brush massage and/or have an attendant rub the cream in your skin.
So all in all, quite nice, although not up to modern standards. But last Sunday I was terribly disappointed.
First, I have of course the VIP chip which allows me to enter without having to wait in a potential queue and gives me some 15 or 17% discount. Well, the system didn't work so I had to take normal ones, at normal price. Second, a full wing was closed so it was relatively crowded. Third, the huge showers at the entrance didn't work. Well ok, maybe two worked, but then they couldn't be stopped. Fourth, the place was far from spotless and I only saw a couple of attendants around, young guys who didn't look very efficient. Usually there is one who welcomes you, makes sure that you discard the sheet and the slippers when you exit the sauna etc, one who continuously wipes the floors, two who do the soap massage... Not a real massage in fact, easy to learn, soapy water poured over you, one hand caresses you all over, the other one peels your skin off with a very harsh brush (and I always choose the soft one!) so hard that I always wonder if my nipples are still attached when I finally turn face down, and the end of the 8 min is signaled by a good Germanic slap on the naked butt which would likely be considered sexual aggression in itself in the US...
Fifth, the temperature of both the air and the water seemed to be a couple of degrees less than usual, which meant that, as you have no towel, when you walk around, nude and wet, it's a bit chilly. And it was not a mere impression. The first sauna is announced at 55 degrees Celsius, to ease and relax you, the second one at (I think) 70. There was a thermometer in the second sauna, the "hot" one, higher than my eye level so in warmer air, which indicated... 53 degrees!
But what really pissed me off was when we were in the main pool with another 8-9 people. Yes, it was crowded, maybe 50 people in total. I was seated on the stairs opposite the entrance, D was seated one step higher and was giving me a neck and shoulders massage. I like this position, I can spend an hour in warm mineral water getting a shoulders rub... And D gets to see well all the naked girls who come in and out the room and pool, so I guess everybody is happy.
So we were minding our business, bothering no one, with no other contact between us but D's hands on my shoulders, when one of the two young new attendants came to tell us that we need to stay aside, we can't touch each other. There was an older couple near us, leaning on the pool wall next to each other, barely touching their shoulders - even they were dissed and told to "separate".
Really, Friedrich? Couples can't touch each other? Had never been told that in the 6-7 years since I started to visit you or else I wouldn't have continued to come. Most couples like to hold each other, hug each other, give each other a shoulders rub when in the nude in a thermal water pool, are you out of your mind?
There is nothing about the closing of half the premises on the site, so I guess this is not a massive renovation which would give this place the spark back and in this conditions I guess I'll stop coming. It's probably not very efficient economically, I don't see how this place can make money, but it's owned by the municipality and a big touristic attraction...
On the other hand, what I liked was that several women, 3 of whom probably under 30, had full bushes. Ok, maybe a bit trimmed, lovely Bermuda triangles which attracted lovely attention. In Sinsheim we are all uniformly shaved, but I think diversity and freedom are nice. Why do we all follow the dictates of the current nudist fashion? You go girls. I would grow a full bush myself just to make a point but number one, my pubic hair is quite sparse and blondish so not very impressive, and number two D likes me better without it. Oh well...
Thanks for the comprehensive review, as always!
This is the one I was brave enough to walk past the doors of some 20 years ago on a business trip. Not brave enough to go in. My day in the region had as its main feature driving through the Black Forest on scenic minor roads (and my pre-planning for that turned out to be quite satisfactory) but Baden Baden had to feature on the route. The historic name and its place in history earns some respect, at least for me.
Now I know what I missed...sort of. It sounds like my experience, had I been brave, would have been a little different, but then it all would have been new to me.
If I was to try it now I'd like to try both this (old school) and Sinsheim (modern) and while I like tradition it sounds like Sinsheim would win out.
As for hair fashion, tradition again shows up! Good on them for making their choice and good on you, F, for taking a significant other into account. :-) If I was there, my style would be whatever I had at the time - anything from almost nil to full, although it's now largely gone for summer.
In Sinsheim as well I occasionally saw a guy -always the same, a short, overweight bald gentleman - telling people to stay apart. But it only happened a couple of times and only at night, in the outside part of the pool. And it's true that there you can do more than holding each others hand when you are in the bubbles.
But in Friedrichsbad, you can only do stuff if you are alone in the room, there are no bubbles to hide anything. Ok, we might have done a little something once or twice in the past when alone on those stairs, but not to the end and clearly not when the pool was crowded and D was clearly seated away from me and one (big) step higher... I don't put my head into pools although water in these these thermal ones is continuously being renewed and I would be more concerned about the occasional 500 ml of urine than the very exceptional 5 ml of sperm they may want to share with other patrons.
So I don't think the potential sex is what prompted them to have such harsh rules. They probably want to have a quiet place for the elderly, where younger couples who like to hold each other don't fit. We may not be so young, but we do like to hold each other when naked in a pool so I guess we don't fit in Friedrichsbad any longer.
Sad to hear, maybe a different group is managing.
You know it only takes one to say that we can save money and not let anyone touch, Because !
I worked for the city here and management changed all the time. So maybe say something about the place is looking bad and no services are available.
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