Fran: what places do you like in the Black Forest?
My all-time favourite is Bad Liebenzell: the sauna area has a landscaped garden with a little pool and two wooden sauna cabins. Fabulous all year round: nothing like a quick outdoor swim in winter or getting a really good tan in summer. In Stuttgart I regularly go to Bad Leuze; that too has a wooden cabin in the middle of a courtyard, a "Sonnenterasse", and on weekend nights sauna guests can swim "Textilfrei" in the big mineral pool...
To see photos of the B. Liebenzell sauna, go to http://www.bad-liebenzell.de, click on Kur und Erholung, then on Sauna Pinea, and then on "Aussenbereich Sauna". A dog's a dog. A Cat's a Cat. (T.S. Eliot)
I have not really lived, or travelled in the South of Germany to be able to explore these places,
reg. Bad-liebenzell, I also like the sound of "Überraschungsaufguss" at midnight... and I agree Budapest has fantasic baths.
sigh, why am I in England again?
The whole concept of Aufguss is pretty weird. I don't know if Finns do it. Do they do it in Berlin? (Btw, my favourite German word is Katzenkratzentrommel: denotes a drum-shaped object covered in sisal rope, with not one, but three catnip mousies inside.)
Being British and (not) being Textilfrei: isn't Textilfrei the very thing a self-respecting Bloomsbury person would do? Or all the British expats in France, Italy or Greece ;-)
Unfortunately I don't have your range of experience with baths and saunas (from Bursa to Finnland via Italy, wow!). I've merely been lucky to have lived in Budapest and in Schwabenland (Swabian and Bavarian farmers used to have a home-grown version of the sauna, at least this is what they claim here). A dog's a dog. A Cat's a Cat. (T.S. Eliot)
the nicer effects are obviously that you really start to sweat with all those nice herbs in the aufguss. but you need a good Sauna master, one that fans you fresh air...
regarding textilfrei. britain has dropped the tradition of public baths, i think in the fifties. it has never really been into Nudist beaches or topless sunbathing in public gardens. even if they are english. nudist behaviour on the mediteranean beaches might be more widespread now, but not among those that go to the sauna back home.
There simply is no real sauna culture in Britain. you find your occasional sauna and steam room, but very rarly are there dedicated spaces, if they are they are usually seen as dodgy and pick up places for gay's. and the public baths obviously don't allow nudity, have no beds to rest on, no foodwarm facilities and no ice-cold plunge-baths.
Nothing.
don't get me started on british Sauna practice.
Listen, lad, just stay home and get your bath proper like, (three inches of lukewarm water at the bottom of the tub on a Friday night), and don't you go getting yourself mixed up with all that foreign stuff. You'll be glad you took my advice.
Perverting a nice clean train blog like that!
Nearer to where I live is Bad Bellingen and Badenweiler, both nice though not comparable to the Friedrichshalle or Bad Liebenzell.
Stuttgart has three main min. baths, the Leuze, Bad Cannstatt and Berg. Berg is still family-owned, and much of the equipment is quite old. It reminds me of the swimming pools when I was a kid in the '60s, wooden booths for changing and so on. The clientele too is very old-world, unlike yuppified Bad Leuze.
Where do you live now? Around Freiburg or Waldshut-Tiengen? A dog's a dog. A Cat's a Cat. (T.S. Eliot)
