As
soon as I began planning this adventure, Friedrichsbad stood out as
the pinnacle of my pilgrimage. Actually, it inspired the notion of
this being a pilgrimage, rather than 'just' a theme-vacation or
business-plan-inspiring-research. Someone out there still calling
their bathhouse a Bathing Temple. I have visited many lovely
bathhouses, and sat in many powerful places of worship. I didn't know
if anywhere in our modern world would truly be able to merge the two,
but I knew I needed to be there.
As
you've probably heard me enthuse, a supplicant to the Bathing Temple
follows 17 steps of ablution and relaxation, for a total of 4 ritual
hours, including the attentions of 3 varieties of masseuse. Upon
leaving, one is guaranteed not only to win any contest of
cleanliness, but also to be at least 1 fathom closer to
enlightenment. According to autogenic legend, one's skin will take on a
pearlescent sheen, one's gaze will remain clear and softly focused
for 72 hours, and one's feet will not actually touch firmament for at
least 24. All of this is true.
The
ceremony unfolds thusly:
Step
1. Shower. (3min) (And right from the get-go, allow me to assure you
that ALL the water, beginning with the showers and including the
bubblers, flows from the famed local healing mineral springs.)
Step
2. Warm-air Bath. (54 ° C, 15min) Every surface in this room glows
with gentle convection warmth, from the floors to the wooden lounge
chairs.
Step
3. Hot-air Bath. (68 °, 5min) From a glow to a steady toast in a
smaller oven.
Step
4. Shower. (1min)
Step
5. Soap and Brush Massages. (8min) Taken in turn, the vigorous soft
bristles and creamy soap bubbles shed the last bits of whatever you
were doing before you entered Friedrichsbad.
Step
6. Shower. (1min)
Step
7. Thermal Steam Bath. (45 °, 10 min) In a marble filled with clouds
of soft mineral-scented steam, a square pyramid of steps faces two
golden hives of calcinated fountains rolling with raw hotspring.
Step
8. Thermal Steam Bath. (69 °, 5 min) On the top step of the marble
pyramid, closer to the sweet heat.
Step
9. Thermal Full Bath. (36 °, 10min) A long cool pool to stretch
warmed muscles and open skin.
Step
10. Thermal Whirlpool Bath. (34 °, 15min) Smaller, bubblier, cooler,
a massage by tiny naiads.
Step
11. Thermal Kinotherapeutic Bath. (28 °, 5min) At the center of the
bath, like a crown glowing 17 meters above the pool, is a golden
frescoed dome that draws your eyes up marble columns and gilded
alcoves, tucking the last of your words away, while you float in
mineral broth.
Step
12. Shower. (3min)
Step
13. Cold-water Bath. (18 °) A quick (breath-stealingly quick)
submersion in cold (breath-stealingly cold) water. Toes numb and skin
very awake after.
(Clever
mathematicians will have noticed that this does not yet fill the
quota of devotional hours. At this point, the supplicant is allowed,
in a near-sleeping-kitten-like quiecience, to roam freely through the
Temple revisiting her favorite rooms at leisure for several REM
cycles.)
Step
14. Drying Off. (with warm towels). (4min) Bed-sheet-sized warmed
towels.
Step
15. Application of Moisturizing Cream. (8min) Expertly applied in
handfuls til you are evenly frosted with a dense fragrant cream; it's
not meant to soak in yet.
Step
16. Resting Room. (30min) In which you are rolled into warm blankets
and tucked into one of maybe 3 dozen beds filling a huge, dim,
rose-colored dome of a room, to nap.
Step
17. Reading Room (30min) In which the lounging continues in a more
sentient vein, with time to more fully comprehend the miles one's
life has just traveled towards true happiness, and have tea.
I
will admit; I remember the practicals, but after step 5, my sense of
analytical self, and a goodly portion of my vocabulary, washed down
the drain with the suds. (They were good practicals, though: soft
cotton sheets to wind in while lounging and traversing, traded for
clean sitting pads before the steam room; a dozen pairs of bath
sandals in different sizes, and disinfectant-dunk, before the hot
rooms; clocks without numbers to help you keep the time without
worrying you about time...) The further I wandered into the bathing
temple, the deeper I sank into pure corporeal awareness, and solid
visceral bliss. The light was always muted and murmuring, the air a
burned-velvet pattern of steam and refraction. Every room was
decorated with unique painted tiles and mosaics of art nouveau flora,
aquatic fauna, or abstract color. The giggle of falling, splashing,
running water echoed everywhere. The air never warm and never still,
the other bathers never close or stiff, and the staff singularly kind
and cognizant of the beautiful healing collapse prompted by the
place.
There
is a Mark Twain quote cited in every single description anywhere of
Baden-Baden's historic Irish-Roman Bathing Temple, and I would
probably have my travelog licence revoked if I didn't repeat it for
you here, “At Friedrichsbad, you
lose track of time within 10 minutes and track of the world within
20…” And as much as I hate to ride even the
wittiest of coattails, I agree – if you are someone who pays a lot
of attention to your watch, I expect Friedrichsbad is very much like
that. For me, though, I'll say Friedrichsbad glows at the sunny
crossroads between the Brigadoon of my bones and the Oz of my bliss,
and leave it at that.
Friedrichsbad: Historic Bathing Temple
