Baden-Baden was never in my way. Until a low-cost company introduced a flight from Belgrade to the airport, which is actually called Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden. But the former military airport is much closer to a fashionable spa than Karlsruhe, which with more than 300 inhabitants is five times larger than this town.
The neighboring larger city does not have what the ancient Roman rulers valued - thermal springs. Baden-Baden has always been associated with the healing hot water that springs up on the edge of the Black Forest - the Black Forest.
On the bus that will take me twenty minutes to the main train station, I think about the unusual double name of the city. The German word for the Latin aque, which means spring, water or bathing place, is "Bad". That is why the place is still mentioned in medieval sources as Baden - bathing place or spa. First, the name of the place was transferred to the nearby Velika castle, and then to all feudal estates. Eventually, they named the whole country Baden. This is the half in the name of today's German province in the southwest - Baden-Wirtenberg. So the city was named Baden-Baden, in order to distinguish it from the cities in Austria and Switzerland that bear the same name. It is actually an abbreviation for "the town of Baden in the Marktcounty of Baden".
Just as I have unraveled the history of the name, I arrive at the train station. She greets me with platform boards that remind me of the chaste age of railways. I am already driving the city bus towards the city center through streets with lots of greenery. I get off at the Leopoldsplac station. And I'm already in the heart of the place that has the epithet "the most expensive city in Germany".
TWO MILLENNIUM SPA
Through an alley called "Vjeveričin sokak" in translation, I arrive at the lifeblood of the town - Lange Strasse. "Duga ulica" is a pedestrian zone with all the joys of expensive boutiques and stores.
The river that flows through the place is called Os. Its shores are lined with famous promenades. But I'm going uphill first. The terrain in the eastern parts of the city rises slowly, just to remind us that the old town core is located on the slopes of the Black Forest. The top of the hill that belongs to the city area is already a thousand meters above sea level. The city has 75 square kilometers of forest, and more than 60 percent of the municipality is under forest, so the town is surrounded by one of the largest forested areas in Germany. That unique combination of forest air and thermal springs predestined Baden-Baden to become one of the most famous spas in Europe.
From Duga Street, I turn up the hill into Jelenova Street - Hiršštrase. The town is well-kept, the facades are harmonious. Some corners offer beauty that irresistibly compels the traveler to stop and take photos.
Soon I emerge on the main square of the old town with the Endowment Church. It was on this spot that the Roman emperor Caracalla built luxurious baths almost 1.800 years ago.
On the square, next to the church, there is also the beautiful building of the Old Steam Bath, which today serves as an exhibition space, but also Fridrihsbad - Fridrih's bath - actually its last part, because it is a huge complex that follows the slope with its walls all the way to the valley.
There is also the City Administration Building, as well as many staircases that connect the lower and upper town. I come across the Church Basamaki, which shows that the locals had to be in good shape in their daily work, just like in Lisbon.
There are several hotels around that leave no doubt that they charge more for their services than in other places. The upper town is similar to the old town center of a number of German cities, with its preserved facades, neat and well-maintained streets and attention to detail.
Nothing is "fancy" here, there are no usual addresses and excesses. Everything here is really classy and precisely because of preserving the right measure and taste - expensive.
Stone Street leads downhill to Roman Square. Although it is not on the list of sights, it is the most pleasing to the eye. I don't know if it's because of the already established associative connection with Lisbon, but in it I experience what I travel for - as if I've been here once before. It was as if I lived another life, in another time. So this first meeting with the street is actually a return to the imaginary homeland.
On trips, we are rewarded by moments like this - they are actually the recognition of something close to us, not the admiration of something else.
I read that there is a "Turgenev Association" near here. It was founded with the aim of preserving the memory "of the colony of Russians in Baden-Baden in the 19th and 20th centuries". The roots of Russian-Baden relations are very broad and go back centuries.
BADEN-BADEN KAO RUSKI WITH
The educated Russian elite sees Baden-Baden as a European jewel, that town is not just a beautiful fashionable spa but a Russian myth.
Catherine II wanted to strengthen her connection with the western countries by looking for a daughter-in-law in the aristocratic houses of Baden. Her grandson Alexander chose Princess Louise von Baden. She received the Orthodox faith and was named Elizabeth. The two were on the Russian throne from 1801. After the victory over Napoleon in 1813, Emperor Alexander resided in Baden-Baden. In those years, the Russian elite discovered the charms of this town. Those who kept to themselves in Moscow and Petrograd spent the summer at the foot of the Black Forest. That is why it is not surprising that the literary Baden fashion followed - Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Gogol parade through the town. Some of them were magically attracted by the famous Casino.
Ivan Turgenjev lived in the town for several years and wrote the novel "Smoke" in 1867. The pro-Western attitudes in the novel are one of the causes of the split between Turgenev and Dostoevsky. But in Soviet times "Smoke" was required reading for a number of generations. Thus Turgenev actually preserved the Russian myth of Baden-Baden until today. I guess that's why a monument was erected to him in the spa park.
I went down to Roman Square and faced the huge facade of Frederick's Baths. It is named after Frederick the First, the great Duke of Baden, as it was built during his reign. With the construction of the first Turkish bath in Ireland in 1856, a real craze for elegant baths reigned, and the duke wanted one. And he had plenty of hot water right at the place where the bathroom with his name stands today.
The building has a facade modeled after the Italian High Renaissance, and the dimensions of a representative castle. From there, I visited several important places in the so-called "Bathroom Quarter", each of which has a special story about rich and famous guests. But they are not the main characters, but the town that fascinated them.
THE DARK SIDE OF BEAUTY
I went spontaneously up through Štefaništras. I almost thought of going back, because normal life is pulsating on this slope. One school, a Cuban cafe, a hairdresser. But under a parking lot I came across a sign that reminded me of a less glorious period of local history.
Menorah, a nine-branched Jewish candlestick, appeared in such an unexpected place, that I had to approach.
Behind the candlestick was a stone with a carved message:
AWARENESS AS A CONDITION
MEMORY AS A TASK
RECONCILIATION AS A GOAL
Beneath the nine-branched candlestick, a touching story about the local synagogue is recorded on a board. It was built in 1899 according to the designs of the famous architect Ludvig Levi. Almost four decades later, on November 10, 1938, the Nazis destroyed it. That morning 80 Jews were arrested. They were conducted through the center of the town. They were then forced to read aloud from Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" in the synagogue. All men under the age of 60 were deported to the Dachau concentration camp on the same day. The Synagogue was set on fire by the SS and the Gestapo. The firemen did not come. The city paid the costs of removing the ruins to the Jewish community.
As if the sky was reading with me, it started to rain. I hid in the entrance of the "Klara Šuman" music school. I had enough time to come from 1938 to 2024 again.
SPA BOAR AND GAMBLING PASSION I'm going down to the center again. There's a party in town. Several stages. The radio station SWR3 organizes a kind of pop festival. Despite the rain, people took to the streets. The barbecue smells, beer is being poured. And the Black Forest boars are faithfully kept as mascots
I start on the most famous city path next to the river. They called it Lichtenthal alley. On both sides of the gentle stream is actually a park that has been nurtured for hundreds of years. Back in the 16th century, they planted oak trees along the road that led to the Lihtental monastery. And in the 19th century, the arrangement of the park in the English style began along the river. The park is one of the most beautifully landscaped areas in Germany.
That is why the evil fate of one part of the park resonated with the public, when Hurricane Lotar uprooted over 1999 old trees in the park during the Christmas holidays in 100.
The townspeople founded an association that collected money for planting 200 new trees. These people clearly love their city. Their names are engraved on a board near the bridge over the river Os.
Walking down the alley, I imagine how Litvinov from the novel "Smoke" by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, hand in hand with his fiancee Tanya, is walking towards the Atlantik cafe. His thoughts are with Irina.
Turgenev walked here for seven years.
Alexey Ivanovich comes to meet this couple. They say goodbye, but Alexey doesn't have much time because he is rushing to the Casino, Europe's most prominent casino.
Fyodor Dostoevsky also stayed here in 1867, with his second wife Anna. Later, he created his alter ego, the hero of the novel "The Gambler" by Aleksey Ivanovich. Because he himself was in hell with gambling addiction. And the city in the novel – Ruletenburg – is nothing but this Baden-Baden that I'm walking through.
So, a century and a half ago, this town was a kind of Las Vegas for the idle aristocracy.
The city has retained that aristocratic flair in the world of music. Since 1998, the town of sixty thousand inhabitants has had Germany's largest concert hall – the Festspielhaus.
The historic facade of the internationally renowned building is integrated into the concert hall behind it, which seats 2.500. There was the city railway station. Thus, the modern concert hall has retained the atmosphere of going on a trip.
There's something there. Music is the best trip given to the human soul. Through the ears it reaches unsuspected areas. That's why it's fair to enter the temple of music like a train station - the former cathedral of travel.
With these thoughts, I say goodbye to a town that, it seems to me, carries its glory with ease.
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