Goodbye hospital style bathroom, hello Baden-Baden

On day two of our tour, we got to know more of Trier, Germany with a walking tour. For such a tiny town, and the oldest city in Germany, it surprisingly had an okay amount of things to check out... including a bath museum with a giant foot out front.

However, after a couple of days there, I was ready to move on to the next city and get a new hotel room without a hospital style bathroom in the retirement community. 

After that walking tour, we boarded our bus and started heading to Baden-Baden, checking out cute little towns along the way. The weather was all over the board, one minute it was windy, next minute it was rainy, then it was sunny and warm, then it was cold. Always good to dress in layers in Europe! If you don't like the weather, wait 10 minutes.

We ate lunch in a small town called Beilstein, in the private room of a cute little restaurant called the knights room.

It was really cool and rustic, with guns on the wall, old water pitchers and other historic decor. I had the goulash (soup weather!), which totally hit the spot and is completely different from the version my mom used to make, which I hated. We had a bit of time to explore the cute little river side town, but not much beyond that. Saw this creepy mannequin which freaked me out.

Creepy mannequin

Most of the day was spent on the bus, which does get old after a while, but at least I'm not the one who was driving! We then ventured toward Cochem, took a few pictures during a quick stop, then ventured on to Burg Eltz Castle.

Burg Eltz Castle is cute, and we had a nice tour guide to take us through the tiny rooms, but the walkways up to the castle are some weird, bumpy slick stone surface, and I almost fell on my ass!

Apparently this is Rick Steves' favorite castle, but I'm sorry, it's still not as pretty as Neuschwanstein, which we also get to visit later on in the tour.


After a long day of touring and sitting on the bus, we arrived back in Trier, and some of us opted to go out for Italian food. This is the closest to Italy I've ever gotten, so I figured I should take advantage, and the pasta carbonara I had didn't disappoint!

The next day, we headed to Baden-Baden, toured the casino (meh), then had the rest of the day to do whatever we wanted. Several of us went to the Lowenbrau beer garden for lunch,
then walked around town and along the river, which was really cute.

Lowenbrau Beer Garden

Baden Baden

Baden Baden

Some of the group opted to go to the baths, some of which are nude,  but I want to no part of that. I don't want to see members of my tour group naked. Ew.

My body and legs started giving out on me, so I went back to my room for a nap, then woke up around 7 p.m. and found a Chinese restaurant to fill my belly until the morning. Yes, I know, why the frick is she eating Chinese food in Germany? It was actually pretty good, and Yelp rarely steers me wrong!