Monday, July 5, 2010

Bathing in Baden

Summer in Vienna beautiful yet hot. The answer: Baden, home to the thermal baths, pools and the largest beach in Austria (more like the only). A few intrepid YSSPers trekked to Baden by train (we thought we were going on a bus but we got there eventually).

Baden is a picturesque town past Modling (which is past Laxenburg). We stopped off for a nibble before swimming. Coffee here is served with love. The nibbles turned into 1 giant pizza that we couldn't finish.

We wondered through Baden to get to the baths, which meant a few cute alleyways and a beautiful town garden filled with roses, flower beds, archways and a pond. It really was a little slice of tranquillity.

The historic baths are a heaving mass of people especially after walking through a mostly deserted town. The baths are split into warm areas and cool areas with connecting walkways. The one end also features supertubes which brought out the children in all of us. When was the last time you went down a supertube?


We finished off the day with scrumptious Greek dinner near Landstrasse. Today was meant to be a slow, relaxing day before another hectic work week. It certainly delivered but I did indeed learn something today as topics over food and in the swimming pools covered philosophy, literature, politics, public goods and trains. I seem to be learning more over coffee breaks than in seminars.

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