Baden-Baden Trip

Baden-Baden Trip

A senior Terrence once told me that I must try and visit Baden-Baden when I’m in Germany. It’s not too far away and it’s one of the richest towns filled with rich people and a casino. The town is so rich that the train tracks through Baden-Baden are walled up, anybody in a train cannot look into Baden-Baden.

Then Carol told me that her landlady’s going up Baden-Baden to visit her daughter and asked me along. Naturally, I jumped at the opportunity even though I barely knew her landlady and felt quite bad imposing her. I asked my housemates what I could see in Baden-Baden. “Rich men. Lots and lots of rich men. There’s a casino there too, but I don’t think the rich men actually visit the casino.” “There’s a spa. Hot springs.” “Other than that, nothing much.”

Baden-Baden is pretty far away from what I remembered, perhaps about 130km away? Okay, it’s not really that far, but it’s a reasonable distance that you can’t commute to and fro from there daily. But Carol told me that her landlady told her that the journey was only about an hour. I thought that perhaps Baden-Baden is nearer to me than I thought.

On our drive there, I realised the reason for the journey being only an hour. We went onto the autobahn, A5, one of the stretches of autobahn allowing us to drive with no speed limit. Carol’s landlady drove a normal little sedan, but when I peered over at the speedometer, I was pretty surprised, she was averaging at about 160km/h, on a small little car. And her fastest speed reached 170km/h. Those are speed ranges that I don’t think any of us will ever be able to drive in our whole lifetime. In Singapore it’s impossible to drive at anything over 120km/h due to short roads and other cars, not to mention the high number of speed cameras all over the island. Even in Malaysia it’s impossible because now driving a Singapore car into Malaysia is expensive. The roads in Malaysia are not that good too, the cars there also won’t allow you to drive to that fast a speed, and there’re also speed limits.

I don’t understand one thing. I grew up in Singapore where highways are not tolled, then as time went by, there’s such thing called ERP, but that’s not for highways, that’s to control road congestion. Then I looked over to Malaysia where they have proper long stretches of highways. They’re tolled. So, always I assumed that highways needed to be tolled for their maintenance and whatsoever. But the autobahns are not tolled. I think that should be the case.

Back to driving on autobahns, all the cars there drive very fast. It seems like no vehicle is allowed to drive slower than 60km/h on the autobahn. This is something very interesting to me, not maximum speed but got minimum speed~ Even all the lauya pok cars all drive very fast. And when we were at 160km/h, this Porsche zoomed past us. Imagine the possible speed of the Porsche. I think it’s definitely more than 180km/h is possible even hitting 200km/h. I just love the fast life, and fast cars.

It’s a pity most fast cars, big cars, expensive cars in Germany are owned by old people. Old men, old women, think they are like the only group of people who are rich enough to own the nice cars. Okay, there are still some young people driving nice cars, but mostly the nice cars are owned by the old folks. Porsches, CLKs, SLKs, X4, X5… I’m jealous~

I just managed to digress again. This post is supposed to be about Baden-Baden and I just went on about autobahns.

Baden-Baden.


One, It’s the logo of Baden-Baden. Cool~ This particular picture was taken off a trash can. I can’t seem to be able to take one of those flag things as they were too high up.
Two, The townscape with the mountains bordering the town. Baden-Baden is built in the Blackforest, so it’s generally mountainous.
Three, Nice hotels. It’s a norm to see nice hotels dotting Baden-Baden. Every two steps is yet another nice, quaint hotel catering to rich old men.
Four, The streets are a bit more modern than other European streets. Large walkways with large shops and a modern feel. It’s Baden-Baden.
Five, The platz in Baden-Baden seems to be much bigger than other places platzes I don’t know why. And this one has a fountain too~ I think the town council or whatever they call them is like damn rich to be able to build such things.
Six, Another big church and a bigger fountain. Churches are evident in any European town, and who says the Westerners are unreligious?
Seven, The fountain in a close up look. It’s pretty sitting in a nice big garden just like that.
Eight, Town Theatre, with a big flower garden right in front. Pretty~
Nine, This is the café sitting in front of the casino. Looks like the people there all look very rich, and don’t need to work. Sort of like the feeling when I went to Holland Village. Everyone there looked so free and rich, don’t need to work yet still got lots of money.
Ten, The casino.

I tried to take a video of the hall of the casino. I can’t take videos inside the casino, well, actually I didn’t even make it inside the casino since I didn’t have my passport with me, but I want to go there another time!!! During the World Cup, England team will stay in a hotel in Baden-Baden, they are rich anyway, and everyone there is rich too. No, my main point is that if I go to the casino then, my chance of getting to meet John Terry is face is higher!!! He’s a big gambler. He’ll definitely go to the casino. Maybe Frank Lampard will join him there too, and Joe Cole… wahaha~



Now onto food. What’s a Joan’s trip without food? Not a Joan trip…

We visited this little café which looked filled with people, so we guessed that the food there should be great. The only downside, it was a tad more expensive than other places, but I guess it was Baden-Baden, so we chose the cheapest things on the menu to eat. Wursts~ The interesting thing is that there’s an English menu in this café. How thoughtful~

Le Bistro


One to four, Spot which are the real people and which are the fake ones?
Five and six, The interiors of the café.
Seven, A coaster. I should have kopped that coaster home. It’s so cute and interesting, and I like that little man you can see the bigger one in picture one. And I like red.
Eight, There’s like this whole row of wine bottles circling the café, so interesting. I wonder how much they had drink to do up this décor.
Nine, Our table of food.
Ten, My sausages, Nuremberg ones. With the potato mustard salad, it’s a pretty filling meal I should say.
Eleven, Carol’s sausages, Munich ones. I like the whole soup idea, but the sausages weren’t as salty as the grilled ones. I think I’m pretty lucky in ordering food because Carol doesn’t seem to be having much luck in her orders.
Twelve, A poster, of beer, what else? lol~

L’Opera Romano


The picture of the restaurant, and various angles of the prawn salad me and Carol shared. Not the cute little lobster, I ate it~

Of course, in Baden-Baden, we did some shopping. Baden-Baden carries quite a few brand names, which of course I didn’t buy. But I did buy something from LUSH! Not Blush hor… It’s LUSH. It’s a UK personal car and cosmetic store not unlike The Body Shop. I used to use this Tea Tree Water from Lush until it’s only store in Singapore disappeared. So now, I spent quite a bit more just to get that same product in a far away land. And the funny thing is that I have no use for that product until I get back to Singapore. Maybe I should ship it back.

Some shops~


One, Godiva. I know everyone has seen little counters of Godivas selling expensive chocolate pieces which are very tiny. This Godiva is like a Louis Vuitton store, complete with big doors that close and you have to push it open yourself, and high ceilings.
Two, Check out their gift range. Oh man…
Three, Bags~ Pink bags~ Expensive bags~
Four, Little clay figurines, not very cheap, but very pretty.
Five, Pearls! My favourites, so many designs so nice so expensive.
Six, Another bubble dress that I like. This one is of soft cotton, nice design, short enough skirt for me, butbutbut don’t have it of my size. hai… So suay… But then hor, Eugene you must be laughing. bah~

That’s the end of the half day Baden-Baden trip.