Baden-Baden is built on magic, has
celebrated several millenia of birthdays spinning, winding and
handing out this magic, and is completely conscious of it. You can be
sure, though I have found no mention in our post-Imperial literature,
that people of all fur, feathers, and feet have been bathing in the
springs of this valley since the beginning of the world. It's too
beautiful, too protected, altogether too perfect to have not threaded
its magic into all organic history. The Romans made it official with
stone, however, and Baden-Baden has been in the business of bathing
ever since. I wandered over some of its 54 sq. miles of Black Forest
river valley, through falling snows and along the river Oos, in a
kind of steamy trance. An Entire City Devoted to Bathing.
And casinos.
But who cares about casinos?
I don't know if I've ever shared this
with you, but I'm a sucker for bathhouse t-shirts. I don't really
understand it either, and it's not like most bathhouses sell t-shirts
(but the ones that do are awesome!) It might be some bath-geek
equivalent of sport team support. Or maybe it's just poorly
translated enthusiasm. I don't usually wear clothes with logos, or
words. I don't often wear band t-shirts. They make me feel shy and
unprepared for coolness. But somehow I'm totally charmed by the
thought of someone designing a t-shirt to talk up a place filled with
hot water and naked people. I think it's fabulous. And wearing them
makes me feel like an underground superhero.
So I keep my eye out for bathhouse
paraphernalia. And on my last day in Baden-Baden I found myself in a
situation I had never encountered before – desirous of a "I ♥
Baden-Baden" t-shirt. You know exactly the one I'm thinking of, it's
the same shirt hanging in every eye-rollingly touristy souvenir shop
on the planet. (My only defense is that I do have an awful lot of
enthusiasm, even if it is poorly translated.) I looked high and low,
everywhere from the shops where they sell postcards to the train
station newsstand to the Christmas market to the supermarket. I found
silver-plated Baden-Baden spoons, and enamel-painted Baden-Baden
plates, and even swarovski-crystal-bedazzled Baden-Baden totebags.
After going through a dozen bewildered shopkeepers in a dozen
different shops, I am forced to concede that Baden-Baden, city of
historically relevant baths and big old money, is simply not mundane enough to make tacky tourist t-shirts.
And, for the life of me, I
don't know whether to be annoyed or relieved.
