January 11, 2016

Roman Baths (Kaiser-Friedrich-Thermes)

We spent a brief day in Wiesbaden.  The reason we came to this city was for Sylvie to get a massage and to enjoy the thermal baths that she read about.  It rained…poured…all day!

At the thermal bathes we discovered that they were mostly all booked up for massages—Sylvie was majorly bummed.  The thermal baths were once Roman Baths and are a major attraction in Wiesbaden, which literally means “White Baths”.

The bathhouse included many different saunas (dry and wet), pools of various temperatures, and other relaxing elements.  We learned that we needed to be nude for bathhouse.  Sylvie was extremely reluctant and did not want to go any more.  I won’t go into much detail here but I will say this:  I thought the idea was liberating and I fully embraced the concept!

 Couch Surfing Experience

After taking a few more busses and trains we arrived at our couchsurfer’s flat.  It was just after 6pm and was expecting us.  We brought her a bottle of wine as a gesture of kindness for her having us spend the night with her at her place.  She was a very sweet person.  We talked for several hours, drank tea and wine, and ate chocolate.   She seemed a bit disappointed when we told her that we already had a bus for the following morning—she had hoped to be able to take us around town.

We discussed our recent travels to Latin America as she was in Peru and Bolivia just 3 months ago.  As the hour approached 10 we got ready for bed.  We were all a bit drained.  Since our host has a very small apartment and shared it with 2 other housemates we slept on a very uncomfortable twin mattress right besides her bed.  This is our first time sharing a room with a couchsurfing host.  All in all it was a success and got up before 7 to catch our bus the next day.