Bad = Bod
Rodach = ROW-dock (of course the 'ck' has that guttural German thing going, but you can ignore that for now).
There you go! Bad means bath or spring. Any town in Germany with Bad in the name has springs or natural baths and the town has met some legal requirements to have the right to use Bad in its name.
Today was our last full day in Bad Rodach. It was also a very hot day (100F/37C). This is not normal weather for this part of Germany, which is not a place with air conditioning! Think on that.
So, today we first had lovely breakfast in the hotel. Then, we loaded up a backpack with everything we wanted to ship home, including some bike gear. We biked to Marco's bike shop, so we could remove our clipless pedals from the bikes and give the bikes to Marco (we'd discussed this with Marco some days ago).
Then, we walked to the post office and bought a box and boxed up all the bike gear (bike shoes, pedals, jerseys, etc.) and some books and papers and maps, and a few other things, and shipped it home. [Hey, Karin, another box coming your way...]. Next, we stopped at the little jewelry store at the address where grandfather Richard Baldes was born and bought Amelia another pair of small earrings (peace signs).
Then, we searched for lunch. We thought we'd try a new place, so we walked to Maxime's, a restaurant we'd seen on Coburger Straße a block from Andy's great-grandfather's former (second) address. But, it was closed. Apparently, it is only open in the evenings. We can't quite figure out how restaurants work in this little town. Some have two closed ("rest") days, some even have Friday as a closed day (in the restaurant business?), and some just don't open now and then on days they claim to be open normally (We are looking at you, Lucciolo...). It's hard to predict. And, of course, lunch is only available between 11:30am and 2:00pm, if you are lucky. And dinner at some restaurants ends really early (6pm in one case!). We can't quite get the hang of how this works in this little village. It's been amusing.
So, there we are, having walked a few blocks in 100 degree F weather. Where to eat? So we went to the closest place, a little Döner Kebab Haus on the corner next to the address that used to be great-grandpa Albin Baldes' home. It's so tiny there's one table and a few stools inside, and one two person table outside. However, the food was good (and cheap!). Andy had a döner pizza and Amelia had Bratwurst. Yum. They did not, however, have any still (non-carbonated) water.
So, after eating there, we walked to the Stadt Cafe (we didn't eat there today because we've eaten there so many times) to have some cold water.
In this heat, we have tried very hard to stay hydrated. We had a little bet about the cost of the water and Amelia won because Andy said it couldn't cost more than 5 Euros (it was 6 Euros). Water is more expensive than beer!
We drank about 2 liters together before we walked to the market square fountain to meet up with Frau Doktor Anja Augustin for the Dunkelgrafen tour.
The "dark duchess" is a local mystery about a mysterious royal woman who lived in seclusion in a nearby small castle.
She is believed to have been Napolean's daughter.
It is an interesting story, for sure.
We'd heard much of the history before, so it wasn't too confusing listening to it in German (the other 11 people on the tour were all German, of course).
Anja showed us pictures and explained all sorts of history, mostly keeping us in the shade because of the heat.
When the group went into the city museum, we turned off to walk back to the post office because the woman working the hotel that morning (Jenny) had promised us a ride home from the post office at 3:30.
We stopped to have ice cream on the way.
This was such a nice offer we could not turn it down. Jenny's offer saved us walking a mile up the hill in 100F sunny heat. She drove us back by different roads that we hadn't seen before, which was so cool because we were able to see some other parts of the village, including a large company that makes automobile air conditioners.
At the hotel, we decided (while standing in our hot hotel room) that the only thing to do next is put on swimsuits and walk over to the Thermalbad. So, we did. We spent three hours mostly floating (and for 20 minutes doing group wateraerobics, which was hilarious) in three of the pools. It was so nice to cool off and relax without the oppressive heat.
In the evening, we walked back to the hotel, showered, and went to dinner. It was our last dinner in the hotel, which has spectacular food, so Andy had some special chicken dish of the day with pasta and Amelia has Wienerschnitzel with roasted potatoes. We both had desserts as well. Andy's was some funky orange jelly thing and Amelia had her favorite chocolate crepe with white chocolate ice cream. Mmmm. We are going to get fat...
We ate outside and listened to a thunderstorm building up. The rain came just as we finished dessert so we spent some time watching the lightning from the front of the hotel, which has a nice view over the valley. It was a nice lightning show for Independence Day. We also chatted with a man from Munich (Pierre!) who was there on the front porch watching the storm with two small daughters. They are here visiting his father in the rehab hospital just over the hill from the hotel.
We are hoping the rain will cool things off faster than previous nights. It has been taking some hours at night for things to cool down, which makes it hard to go to sleep until very late, which is why this is being typed at 11:30pm.
Tomorrow we set off by train for Nürnberg to meet the Nilselids (our Swedish friends) and go traveling by car through southern Bavaria. It's going to be fun, but we have to pack up and get organized yet again. We have no idea if we'll have wifi along the way so the posts might be a bit delayed in the coming week or so.
No comments:
Post a Comment