Initially when I first heard the phrase “taking the waters, ” it conjured up visions regarding titled aristocrats languidly relaxing at a spa in a peaceful resort town, maybe with a chamber music quartet playing softly in the background.
It did not suggest, internet site discovered last spring at the Roman baths in the German town of Baden-Baden, the unfamiliar and unnerving experience of walking around completely nude in a room packed with strangers (of both sexes), exposing the many imperfections of my middle-age physique to anyone who felt like glancing upon it.
I had gone to Baden-Baden, a bucolic town set between the Black Forest and the Rhine Valley, to get a concert by the Berlin Philharmonic, part of Baden-Baden’s annual music festival. A friend got seen, and eagerly recommended, a performance of “The Passion of E. Matthew” that would be played there around Easter, and I had booked tickets six months time earlier. But once I arrived, I thought I would also try out one of the bathing the town was famous for, going back to the days when Queen Victoria, Dostoyevsky and also Gogol were all regular visitors.
So I went for a walk around the winding streets of Baden-Baden, past a tiny park, a clutch of wonderful cafes and what looked like a never-ending supply of beer gardens, and finally came upon the particular imposing 19th-century neo-Renaissance-style building housing the Friedrichsbad baths. I walked the staircase to the front door, eagerly awaiting the pleasurable experience to come.
And then I actually read the welcoming sign that spelled out the very precise house rules, that may basically be summed up as: No clothes. Ever.
I stopped for a instant, pulled out my iPhone, looked up “Friedrichsbad” and “Baden-Baden” and soon came across harrowing stories of unsuspecting (and largely American) tourists who, in their desire for slightly modesty, had tried to cover their nether regions with small towels since they went from room to room, only to have them snatched abruptly away from these by grim-faced attendants.
Hmmm.
Now a bit more wary of what lay ahead, I actually entered the utilitarian dressing room, shed myself of my clothing and also walked a little hesitantly toward the main hall, where an attendant greeted myself with a folded sheet and a pair of slippers, then pointed me in the direction of the particular shower, where I experienced a waterfall-like cleansing of the day’s accumulated determination.
After the shower, I eased my feet into the slippers but held the particular sheet gently in my hand, having been forewarned by the online reviewers that it must only be used as a protective seat on the extremely hot benches in the sweat. If I tried to use it as a covering, it would be pulled away from my body by the ever-vigilant attendants.
Then, after sweating out the toxins in two saunas - the next hotter than the first - I headed for the third stop on the 17-step bath circuit: the soap-brush massage. Handing over my sheet and slip-ons, I stretched out on a massage table that looked like a hospital gurney and also was asked by the white-jacketed attendant if I wanted a “soft” or “hard” scrub. The correct answer, in case you want to know, is “soft. ” Choose “hard” as long as you like the masochistic pleasure of having your skin ripped from your body.
Then, after having a firm pat on the behind, and now both sheetless and shoeless (they are usually taken away, without explanation, once the sauna part of the spa experience is over), I actually started my journey from one soothing mineral bath to another, with the exact moment I was supposed to spend in each - eight minutes here, 11 mins there, 10 minutes the next - written on the walls in English and German born.
Soon, I picked up the protocol. As you enter each room, you approve the other naked patrons with the briefest of nods. The unspoken agreement (with an emphasis on unspoken, as the signs warn you that silence is demanded), is that “Yes, I am naked, and, yes, you are naked, but we are certainly not, under any circumstances, going to acknowledge it. ” Only at one point did I believe as if any of the other patrons were going to break the fourth wall, when this specific cherub-like man in what appeared to be his late 60s splashed happily near myself, coming ever closer with a look on his face that suggested a dialogue was about to begin. I looked away, closed my eyes and sunken myself in the water.
After a series of soaks in the different mineral baths, I actually headed toward the “quiet room, ” where, after being cocooned simply by one of the attendants in a warm sheet and a heavy blanket, I snuggled in to a welcoming bed (one of about two dozen in the room) for what the sign up the wall suggested should be 30-minute rest period. I nearly drifted down, soothed by the piped-in sounds of birds softly chirping, only to be jolted alert by the person three beds over, snoring loudly.
Coming out, I advancing to what would be the last room, a sun-drenched library where tea and publications were available. I was finally getting the hang of this, I told myself, ?nternet site left behind the sheet and blanket and marched proudly into the sunroom stabil naked. The attendant started shouting at me in German and aiming first to my now-pinkish body and then to the room I had just kept.
I looked at him puzzled. “Sheet! ” he yelled, now in The english language. “Sheet! ” It turned out that I was supposed to bring that last sheet by himself; that protocol requires that you cover up when going into the library. So it appears as if everything else you do at the spas - shower, swim, get massages, walk by means of drafty hallways from one mineral pool to the next - you must do completely naked. Nevertheless the act of reading demands a certain modesty.
A half-hour later (again, the particular precisely recommended time), I headed back to the changing room.
“Finished? ” the attendant asked as I walked by him. “Yes, ” I mentioned. With that, he pointed toward the lockers and snatched the sheet coming from my body, a small smile of triumph crossing his face as he converted away.
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