I have to say, I do have it pretty rough when it comes to my daily commute to work. I felt like snapping a few pictures on my walk home this week just as the sun was beginning to set. Yes, my walk is almost entirely on the trail along the lake and those are indeed the Alps on the other side of the water.

An interesting little fact about Germany during this whole Olympics/China/Tibet fiasco…is that the German government has officially said they recognize Tibet as being part of China. And yet, there are Tibet flags flying all over Überlingen. They hang out windows like the one next to our apartment, people are out during market time trying to talk to people, flags are displayed in the windows of houses and of a little cafe around the corner from us and also, amazingly….flies alongside the German, Swiss and Austrian flags on the waterfront!

images via Lisa Town

Ever since we arrived, Wolfgang has been trying to get us to go to the thermal spa…the pride and joy of Überlingen. To ensure that we would go one day, he even bought us two tickets! So since this last weekend was pretty dreary, we decided it would be a good time to hang out in some water.

The thermal spa, along with McDonalds, seem to be the only things around here open past 8 and since they were going to be open till 11pm on Saturday, we decided to show up around 8:30. There are essentially four main areas to the place, aside from the lobby and restaurant, there is the sport area, hot springs, wellness pools and sauna world. I wish I could’ve taken my camera inside because the detailing was really nice.

We had tickets to the sporting pools and hot springs. The wellness and sauna areas were extra so I can’t really comment on those but perhaps we’ll try them out another time. But I do know that the sauna area is open to the lake and people were contstantly going out and taking a dip to cool off. I couldn’t even imagine running out and jumping into the freezing lake…that’s Alps water people!

The hot springs were really nice and basically consisted of one large pool that was partially indoor but with the main area outside. In order to reach the outside, you have to get in the water and then swim through a little plastic door to get outside. The outdoor area weaved around and had lots of different areas with varying types of jets, bubbles and water that would pour from above. It was all timed so that different areas were off while others were on and it would cycle through. There was one pool that was like a crazy current that wipped around an island and once you got in the path, it wipped you off and everyone was jut riding the current around the island…and pretty fast too! The nice part was that it was totally open to the lake and sky and since we were there at night the whole thing was steaming and it was a little surreal. There was also a water jet out on the lake that was lit up to look like fire spitting out from the dark water.

We also had access to the sport area which was mainly a big lap pool but also had water slides and we enjoyed those…especially since there was mostly no one else around using them. So we would run up the stairs and slide down, over and over. It was pretty fun, we felt like kids.

This might all sound pretty normal for a hot springs type spa facility right? Well one thing that was a bit different, at least for us, was the locker room. When we got there, we figured we were going to have to go our separate ways and meet in the pool area. But when we entered, we got a bracelet with our locker number and a little plastic chip and were told it opened our lockers and let us into the various pool areas (and charged you accordingly). So we walked over to the locker area and realized it was one big area…for everyone. We walked in and there were girls blowing their hair while half-naked and guys walking around and we were totally confused and weren’t sure we were in the right place. Then we realized, that was it!

There were aisles and on one side was a lock and another were small changing rooms, and there were several like this. You found your locker and then changed right next to it. Luckily they provided separate rooms. Everyone out in the open would certainly be a bit more than I would’ve liked. It was a bit strange though to see how much people really didn’t care about walking around in very little, and sometimes nothing. And guys definitely seemed to prefer the little speedo like suite to the shorts type.

We had a good time we’ll certainly go back before we leave. Especially since we still have two more tickets! We got a couple from the registration office when we moved here in our welcome packets. Like I said…it’s the pride of the town!