About this experience
Baden-Baden is an extraordinary city where on adjacent streets you will encounter monuments from different eras: from Roman baths, Romanesque churches, neoclassical casino, to Art Nouveau mansions. Its existence is attributed to the thermal springs - we will talk about how it influenced its development. I will tell the city's history, starting from the movement of tectonic plates. Romans, pilgrims, margraves, masons, writers, and poets - my stories and legends will help you understand what makes Baden-Baden so alluring and charming.
What to Expect
The City of Springs - Resort Town
The tour begins in the old Roman quarter: once the Romans, who founded the city under the name Aquae Aureliae, erected splendid baths in this place - today their role is fulfilled by the thermal complex 'Caracalla' and the Roman-Irish baths 'Friedrichsbad'. You will learn about two types of baths, see Roman ruins and catacombs, and enter the town hall building, under which there are caves with an underground thermal lake - we may even be able to see one of them right in the hall.
Religious Monuments of the City
Located nearby is the Old Catholic Hospital Church: I will tell you about pilgrims who visited our city and this church, and about what happened to the Black Madonna - a local relic. We will visit the cathedral on the market square, combining three styles: Romanesque, Gothic, and Baroque. We will walk along the famous Lichtentaler Allee, so beloved by Ivan Turgenev and Saltykov-Shchedrin, and find ourselves on the territory of the ancient Cistercian monastery. Founded in 1245 by Margravine Irmengard of Baden, it has never been closed and has preserved its buildings in their original form.
Histories of Baden-Baden
I will tell you about the Masonic lodges in Baden, where the thermal springs came from, who the Baden margraves were, and why the city gained special popularity among the Russians. You will see the historical complex of Kurgauz and the world-renowned casino in Baden-Baden, where the distinguished Count Lev Tolstoy gambled away
