I spent the weekend (a long weekend)....at some German spa in the midst of Bavaria. To be honest, if I hadn't used the GPS....I doubt if I could have found this place. It was in some hidden valley ten miles off the autobahn...with ten turns and side-roads....before you come to this small village of maybe 500 people. No gas station. No grocery. Just a hotel-spa operation, that's it.
It was one of those weird places that you might hear about but never see much advertising. Maybe a hundred rooms in the place. Their whole specialty was wellness and spa stuff.
Germans get into wellness. Usually, with a doctor's note....you can get the 'cure', which means three weeks in some wellness clinic/hotel.
Me? You could have dropped me off for twelve hours at the Texas state fair, or sent me to some Amish farm demonstration, and that'd be all the wellness that I needed.....with maybe a catfish plate or some bar-b-q'ed ribs.
My impression of wellness, and that of Germans.....are about 180-degrees different.
The peak of my weekend (after sitting in some sauna for an hour)....was a 90-minute period in some salt-mine contraption. It was some cave-like room, with hot water running over some salt collection, and you had all this misty salt air that you were sniffing. I'm not sure what wellness you get out of this stuff.....but some folks think it 'heals' you (molasses heals you too but don't bring this up to a German).
Eating? Well, Bavarians tend to cook well, and I will admit that over the four days....I probably ate around 20,000 calories in food. Bavarians rarely lose weight with the food that they serve.
The highlight of the four days? Well, we are into fasching season....which means parades, music, beer, and frolic stuff (typically meaning costumes and beer consumption mixed). This village advertises itself as having the smallest parade in Germany.....one single float pulled by local farmer and his tractor, with 12 cowboy-dressed Bavarians, and one guy dressed as an Indian. Yep, that was mostly it with forty locals standing around to hoot and hollow.....with twenty kids all pepped up on sugar-drinks. Toss in the 40-odd hotel guests, and that was fasching for 2017.
My wellness level? It's pretty hyped up right now. But I have to kinda admit (to anyone but my German wife), that it's at the same level that existed in the middle of last week before I took this wellness trip.
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