Up up and Away - Hot Air Ballooning in Baden Baden

Rolling out the balloon

Filling the balloon

Making sure everything lines up nicely

Adding the hot air

Although the early morning wake up was a bit of a shock to the system, the hot air ballooning was amazing! We started with your typical safety briefing, which was a lot briefer than it would be in NZ or Australia. It mainly consisted of "do what you are told, and when we land, crouch down and hold on"! Or maybe we just missed some stuff in the German translation...

It was pretty amazing getting the ballon set up and taking off. The balloon was massive! They filled it with air from a really noisy heavy duty fan, and while that was happening there was a guy inside getting all the lines etc sorted, and he looked so small in there.

Once up it was surreal. So high! And then all of a sudden we'd be falling downwards. At one stage the guy said we were going down at 2.5m per second! Looking at the ground, it felt like someone was zooming in the camera, as everything just seemed to get bigger and closer. And then the opposite as we went up again. It was quite noisy when he put the hot air into the balloon, and you could feel the heat on the top of your head.

We "flew" over some small town and everyone was looking up and waving. It's crazy how high the sound carries. We could easily hear their exclamations, and the dogs barking. The pilot even yelled a couple of hellos to people he recognised.

I was a bit worried at times about how much control the pilot had over where we were going, and at what altitude. Although he may not have had much sway over the wind direction, I think he had a lot more control than we realised. We went down really low over some corn fields, until we were just brushing the tops of them, and I picked a piece of the corn plant. He also had a whole heap of ropes he could pull on to change the shape of the balloon and maybe that had some impact over direction, though not too sure.

The views were pretty damn good of the countryside, and the black forest. Unfortunately it was a little cloudy, but even so the views were spectacular.

After a couple of hours we landed in this tiny strip of grass on the side of the road. The van and trailer were across the road, so we got a couple of helping hands and he put just enough air in the balloon to lift us off the ground. Someone went and stopped the traffic (which there was a lot of), and the helping hands pushed us across the road. One guy in his car looked absolutely astounded, and I can just imagine his stories when he got into work that morning!

All in all it was a wonderful experience. Would have been nicer if it was a little clearer and there was more wind so we could travel a bit further, but even so it was amazing and would definitely do it again, especially if someone would guarantee the weather!

Hazy views from 600+ meters high

Here we go!

Hazy views

Hazy town and Black Forest

Skimming the top of the corn field

The sun waking up

Packing the balloon away

Written beside the pool in sunny relaxing Santorini

Bath Bath (more commonly known as Baden Baden)

Having a wine in the beer garden

Indian and Moet for dinner - winning combo!

Pretty streets of Baden Baden

Little river through the middle of town

In the park

Bill Clinton said “so nice that you have to name it twice”, and I agree. Baden Baden is a bigger town than the last few we’ve been in, and is a lot ritzier. The first evening we went for a short stroll through the old town, and started ourselves off with a drink in the beer garden. By now I had well and truly given up on beer, and Greg doesn't like it much either, so we were back on the trusty champagne.

We then explored the town a little more, and came across a kind of festival in front of the casino. There were loads of food stalls, and everyone was in a great festive mood. There was a red carpet down which supposedly famous people (who neither of us recognized) were walking into the casino for some ball, and others with fancy hats on who had been to the annual races. No wonder we couldn't get a room in the nice hotel we wanted!

We had dinner (Indian), then some drinks in front of a pretty average band, before heading off. On the way back we stumbled across an awesome band, who played the best cover of Nothing Else Matters ever, according to Greg. They were pretty impressive, and had about 15 guitars, or guitar like instruments (banjo, ukulele etc) between the 4 of them. After the early dinner, and loads of drinks we were in need of a fix before bed, so found an Italian place for some late night pasta.

The next day we explored the gorgeous town a little more before we headed to the baths. It was so nice relaxing around the pools, of which there were quite a few. There was a really strong current, a big mushroom fountain, numerous different types of jets and a waterfall, all of which turned on and off or changed every 10 mins or so.

That night was our last night in Germany so we decided to go "Full German" for dinner. Lots of meat, potatoes and dumplings. So tasty, but once again so full!

The next morning we were up early and off to go hot air ballooning which will get it's own post.

Baden Baden streets

The festival thingy we found

Watching the crap band at the festival

The awesome band we stumbled across later (the blurry
photo is quite good considering the drinks we'd had!)

The baths (no cameras allowed so I thiefed this off the net)

Going full German on our last night

In the center of Baden Baden

This post was written while on the ferry from Crete to Santorini, then finshed relaxing by the pool in Santorini

Pretty Black Forest Towns (Schiltach, Wolfach and Gengenbach)

Cute little bear having a nap in the sun

Stocking up on night and day at an
Apotheke in Wolfach

The drive to Schiltach was really pretty. Lots of winding road, through forests and up and down mountains. On the way we came across a sign “Bearen Park”, which I initially mistook for something or other pork. We soon worked out it was a Bear Park, so we stopped for a look. There were loads of bears, and also some wolves in a gorgeous fenced off forest area. The bears were having a grand old time, roaming, looking for food, sleeping in the sun (which had finally come out), and swimming in the river through the middle. We also saw just the single wolf who pretty quickly padded off into the forest, swiftly and silently.

We stopped in Wolfach for lunch, another super pretty town, with a really lovely main street. After the old towns in Lindau and Freiburg being car free though, it was a bit strange to see cars around, and of course they mean the pictures are nowhere near as nice.

Schiltach was on another level when it comes to pretty old towns. All the houses were half timbered (basically the framing made out of timber, then filled with something, leaving the timber visible), and were sprawling across the hillside with the black forest as a back drop. We were welcomed into our hotel (Zur Alten Brucke) by the extremely friendly Michael. He grapsed us each by hand, and pulled us in for a massive hug! The hotel was really old, but clean, and had a little beer garden next to the river through town. Perfect. We went for a walk through town during the “cake hour”, and had ourselves a glass of wine next to all the locals eating cake.

We ate at the hotel for dinner as it was easy and I still wasn’t well. It ended up being great – freshly caught local Black Forest trout salad for starter, followed by this rolled pancake thingy stuffed with herbs and with different toppings, like cheese, ham, mushrooms, onions etc. I forget the proper name for it.

The next morning we woke up to mist through the forest, which soon burned off to a gorgeous day – our first proper day of sunshine for ages! We went for a 11km walk through the forest, and although challenging as it pretty much went up and over a mountain, it was really beautiful and we’re super glad we did it. Arriving back in Schiltach hot and sweaty, we decided a drink and a snack in the beer garden would be a perfect way to end our visit to Schiltach and get us sorted for the drive to Baden Baden, and indeed it was!

On the way to Baden Baden we also stopped at another small town called Gengenbach. It was super pretty as well, with more half timbered houses, but once again the cars were allowed in the old town. We went for a stroll through some of the back streets and came across two of the friendliest cats which followed us for a while, begging for more cuddles. Made me really miss our Duncan!

Wolfach main street

Half timbered houses in Schiltach

Halt timbered houses over the river in Schiltach

Our hotel

Drinking the biggest glass of wine at dinner

Wild flowers

Peaceful Black Forest

Tall trees

A little brook running next to our path

The sun through the forest

Walking down the mountain

A well deserved beer after our walk

View from the hotel's beer garden

Gengenback main street - pretty except for the cars

Greg driving fast (200kph) on the Autobahn

This post was started on the plane from Paris to Crete, and finished by our pool in Crete.

Amazing Food and Wine at Restaurant Bareiss

We had the most incredible dinner at Restaurant Bareiss. We went for the eight course degustation (of course), and it was so good! The highlights were the delicious amuse bouche to start off, the cheese cart (so many cheeses!), the sweets, and of course all the eight courses. So basically everything!

We had the option of local or international wine matches. We decided to go one of each, which was great as we got to taste both. The sommelier warned us the local ones may taste better initially, but the international ones would be a better match, and sure enough, they were. Although the local ones were simply outstanding wines in their own right, some of the international ones were among the best matches we'd ever had!

There's no way to describe how good it was, so will just have to let the photos hopefully tell the story...

The first Amuse Bouche - lots of little
delicious tastes

The second Amuse Bouche - don't recall
what it was except delicious

Variation of goose fois gras w peach & thyme

The third Amuse Bouche - again I forget what it was, but yum!

Sauteed langostino w smoked corn cream & sour cream

Bass fried until crisp w cider sauce, braised hart of cos,
lettuce & nut pesto

Fillet & sweetbread of suckling calf w artichoke fondue,
balsamico and lovage

Fired saddle & poached leg of roe deer from Bareiss hunting grounds
w celeriac & romanesco

The cheese cart

All the delicious cheese we tasted

White coffee mousse w banana & espresso granita

Cream of dark chocolate w raspberries & rosemary rice

Yup... we were the last ones in the restaurant

The menu

The opposite to amuse bouche - deliciousness to end with

Then more sweets on the sweet cart

The plate of sweets we took to our room to finish tomorrow

This post was written by our private pool in Crete.