Bathing Bathing - now YOU TOO can be Butterfly...

It was TracyK's comment on 'swanning about in Baden Baden' that set me thinking. It's a lovely place to spend a week end - on the edge of the Black Forest and the site of two brilliant Roman bath complexes where you could actually spend the whole day just taking the waters. Everyone's travelling on a budget, myself included, and it strikes me that, if you were clever, you could do this for not too much dosh. Here's the plan:

• Flight: Ryanair do a direct flight from Stanstead to Karlsruhe - Baden airport. Which is really Baden Baden, not Karlsruhe. You'd have to get down to Stanstead via a cheapy flight and then you're off!
• Hotels: There's a great one called the Hotel Café Beeg which is situated just opposite the thermal baths. It's also a Konditorei or cake shop of some renown. Single rooms with B&B start at 85€ which is about £64. The Hotel am Friedrichsbad is also great - also situated just opposite the baths and boasts its own Czech restaurant - the Prager Stuben. A bit more expensive with a single starting at 99€ which is about £74.
• Bathing: You have two options, really. First of all, there's the Caracalla thermal baths situated in the heart of the town. It's basically a huge, landscaped indoor pool composed of baths with different temperatures. There are outdoor pools too with all kinds of groovy bubble bath features and waterfalls to play with. Great for kids I have to say. They have bubbling round hot tubs full of tourists. Frogprince and I joke that we will start chopping onions and carrots into the water to see if they get the joke. The upstairs is a sauna complex for the serious health fanatics. But if you want to get that authentic Madam Butterfly experience, then you have to go next door to the Friedrichsbad which has the most stunning architecture I've ever seen in a bath. OK excepting the Hotel Gellert (sorry Sourpus). They have old brass shower heads that measure a foot across. And steam rooms with beautifully tiled walls. And you can have your epidermis scrubbed off in a 'body brush massage'. At the end of the bathing experience, they wrap you up in clean sheets and you lie down and sleep for 20 minutes. And wake up feeling brand new. You just need to know that bathing suits aren't allowed in the Friedrichsbad, although you get a towel to cover your bits.
• Calories: Well, you're sweating them off in the baths, aren't you? You HAVE to have some Black Forest Gateau (Schwarzwälderkirschtorte). It's the law. Cake shops can be found in every street and they're all good. There are many nice restaurants in Baden Baden. Most do good quality German cuisine. and don't let anyone tell you the Germans eat badly. Not in the South West, they don't, gel Nilpferd?
• Otherwise: Baden Baden has a very well renowned Opera house. They get world class acts. Like Nigel Kennedy and Gary Mullen. And I'm not joking. Have a drink in the Medici before your concert... For the considerably more wealthy than myself, or those who fancy being an extra in 'Quantum of Solace', there's also a very beautiful Casino.

And don't forget to take the waters. They're supposed to cure everything from gout to rickets... And if you do make it to Baden Baden for your Madam Butterfly week end, be sure and let myself and Nilpferd know. We're not too far away after all...