Free afternoon

 

After lunch, David and I took off on our own. Several of our tour mates decided to try the famous baths, a few even tried the traditional nude baths (and reported back that they were wonderful!). Because the weather was so beautiful and the next several days were predicting rain, we decided to head up to Merkur mountain for a view of the edges of the Black Forest instead. We waited for a while where we thought the bus was supposed to pick us up to take us to the tram, but it never came. Up for an adventure, we decided to hike through the residential streets to the tram stop instead. What a workout! It was so fun to walk through the streets and look at the impressive homes. At the top of the mountain we stopped for a snack at the coffee shop to enjoy the magnificent view of the rolling hills and forests as we basked in the comfortably cool weather and soaked in some sunshine. It was picture perfect!

 

After returning to the town, we had a quick dinner in a streetside cafe. One of the funniest things we noticed is that in the countries we saw on the tour all the drinks are served in glasses with specific markings to denote the size. The size you are ordering is listed in the menu and the glass is filled precisely to this mark. This was true for the beer, wine and soda. We had to snap a picture of a glass so we could remember this peculiarity. After dinner we enjoyed the riverside walkway called Lichtentaler Allee. It was a perfect, relaxing day with no specific agenda - just what we needed to recoup from our hectic sightseeing so far! We very much enjoyed our time in Baden-Baden and were looking forward to our next stop: Switzerland!