Today was sweltering, and about nineteen of us opted to take a day trip to Baden Baden- a beautiful little town located in the western foothills of the Black Forest (or Westen Baden-Würtembergs). After a two hour train ride, followed by a 20 minute ride on a bus which had its air conditioning turned off (we roasted, mate– roasted!!), we landed in Baden Baden.
We strolled around the picturesque town, cooed at its carefully manicured flowerbeds, and observed a bunch of Baden Baden citizens, just you know, driving their vintage Bentleys around on a regular Saturday afternoon.
The town really was just an aesthetic delight. Its buildings, which are all beautifuIly rendered, painted in various shades of baby blue, pink, yellow and green, and finished off with shutters and colourful flower boxes, are enchanting– pretty as a picture, but deliberately designed so that the various elements of the town fit perfectly together to create a well laid-out grid of gorgeous streets and laneways. I was completely charmed.
Afterwards, we sweated it out on another bus and drove up and up and up, until we reached the cable car which subsequently heaved us up and up and up again, until we reached the top of the Merkur Mountain. That’s 668 metres high in the sky, folks, and what you got was stunning, panoramic views of Vosegen, Schwarzwald and the Rheinebene. So much greenery offset against the bluest of skies– you really just lost sense of time and space, and drank it all in– drunk on the awesomeness of nature. We watched pair after pair of paragliders sprint off the top of the mountain (“Lauf lauf lauf lauuuuf!!” shouted the instructor– that’s: “Run run run run ruuuun!!!” in English), and collectively sighed, as they circled high in the sky over the forest in light, lazy ellipses.
We stuttered back down to the bottom of the mountain in the cable car, famished and crying for some lunch, before storming through some Schnitzel and Eis, and then journeying back to Freiburg im Breisgau. A fabulous, sweaty, beautiful day.
Word of the day: die Aussicht, meaning: “the view”– because it was so freaking pretty.