Note to travellers: I noticed that lots of German senior citizens like to take the cheap trains on weekends for their hiking adventures. At first I thought they were all going to Baden-Baden too and that we would see a lot of naked elderly, which would be somewhat awkward for me! I can't deal with nudity. Once we got to Baden-Baden's Hauptbahnhof, we decided to take a taxi to the thermal baths because none of our guidebooks had directions to get there. Unfortunately the first driver in the queue looked seedy but we took him anyway since we were in a hurry. To make a long story short, the taxi ride cost us a total of DM27, inflating our weekend budget more. 

Caracalla Therme was intimidating and rich-looking. At the front desk we forked over our DM 21 and asked a lot of questions on how things worked. Basically we get a key card valid for 2 hours, and if we overstay we have to pay extra. The key card gives us access to the change rooms and beyond, and allows us to lock our stuff in a locker. The change rooms were really cool, they had two benches and baskets for your stuff, and they locked with these lowering-arms attached to the benches, and you enter through one corridor and the next parallel corridor held the lockers. You just pick any locker, dump your stuff inside, stick the keycard in a slot, turn the key in the keyhole and tie the key to your wrist or ankle. Very very organized!! After all that, we were off (Plato got separated because he had to go to the guys' changing room, naturally). The bathrooms were nice, the indoor pool was really luxurious (that's the one with the massaging shower heads, fountains and geysers) and it was actually a bunch of concentric whirlpools that got hotter as you got to the middle. No one was actually swimming, more like lounging around and sticking by the walls or walking from one end to another ... including me. So basically we tried out everything, from soaking in the really warm thermal baths and then quickly jumping into the cold water bath next to it (trust me, that's how its supposed to be done), to lying down on the suntanning beds (I didn't get tanned at all though), to going into the aromasauna and sweating for a while, to going to the upstairs section to see what the big deal was all about. 1. I only peeped for, like, 2 seconds and I didn't see much since I wasn't wearing contacts or glasses, and 2. Yes, there were naked people lying in the sun and doing miscellaneous activities, it wasn't that big a deal, but since I have the sense of humour of a 6-year-old, I was amused by it. After not doing anything in particular for the rest of our time in the spa, we showered, dressed up and left in roughly 10 minutes and left just in time. I thought I wasn't going to make it because I locked my wallet in my bag -- my wallet that had the keys to my bag IN IT!!! So I had to squish my hand in, fish out the wallet, unlock my bag and get dressed in a hurry. Plato even had time to dry his hair and weigh himself! After getting out, we sorted ourselves out, tried some of the really hot therapeutic water from the three marble basins in the upper lobby, and took photos outside. 

Then we still had some time left to look around so we walked to the Friedrichsbad next door (that's the spa that was more expensive and where nudity was compulsory), and down into the old town. It was pretty empty and, as usual, nothing was open except for a few tourist shops. So we walked around the cobblestone streets, sat on benches and listened to the violin and accordion players playing classical music, and did some window shopping. Then we took the bus back to the train station, got shocked by how cheap it was (and how direct it was) compared to the taxi ride, and back at the train station, guess who we saw? The same stinky taxi driver who brought us to the spa. Grrr. 

Nine hour train ride home to Hannover. You don't want to hear about it, since it was basically the same as the train ride to Heidelberg, except with more sleeping involved.