Bruce's Travels

I am on a "Flixbus," an intercity bus from Munich to Freiburg, for 7 Euro, which is about the best bargain I've encountered on my trip. They have complimentary Internet (I am typing this now while listening to Jason Mraz on my headphones!) and they even give you free pretzel. I am headed back to my original city to pick up my other suitcase, and then head to the Frankfurt airport tomorrow for departure. Well, the voting is in, and I must say Munich is the winner as my favorite city. My hotel, the Platzl, is right around the corner from the Hoffbrau House (NH). The HH may not be the place where everybody knows your name, but it is the place where everyone is friendly, and soon language barriers go down, and everyone is laughing and drinking giant glasses of beer and listening to a Bavarian band over the din of everyone else carrying on. I arrived Saturday afternoon, and after getting settled in my lovely little room, I headed over to the Hoffbrau and ordered a tall bee...

Friday April 4 There is a chocolate company in Switzerland called Laderach, and they have stores in Freiburg (and I'm sure other German cities) and one of their specialties is all kinds of chocolate bark -- white, milk, and dark -- filled with all kinds of delicacies from fruits to nuts to caramel to toffee. They cut the bark into squares, and stack different flavors, wrap them in a plastic sleeve, and sell them by weight (kilo) so what you end up with is something like this: This package cost me 13 euro, and I enjoyed about half of with a cup of Starbucks for an afternoon snack; the rest I had after dinner as a dessert. One of my favorites was the white chocolate with almonds and pistachios. Another was the strawberry cream with bits of crystalized strawberry. And the chocolates were heavenly, as only the Swiss can make it, creamy and melting at body temperature so you cannot hold it in your hand for very long. I think the Swiss do that on purpose to get it inside your mou...

April 1 BADEN - BADEN -- My spa day at the Friedrichsbad here is an experience I will likely remember for a long time to come. For only 55 Euro, I got to luxuriate in a classic Roman bath house for 1/2 day, and experience the "17 steps" to rejuvenation. It took about five minutes to get past the total nudity part (co-ed no less) but once that was accomplished I had an absolutely marvelous time. Here is a picture of the outside:       and a promotional photo of one of the steps, which is the soap and warm water scrub step:       There are many pools and whirlpools and sauna rooms in between, and you just keep walking from room to room in your birthday suit, completing the steps. At the end, they do a cream lotion massage, and then put you in a "resting room" where they wrap you in a blanket and you lie on a bed to take a little nap if you wish. They finish you off in a lounge where you enjoy a snack, sparkling fruit juice, and cho...