Warm water in the Black Forest

Roman baths under a Belle Époque dome, a mountain lake with a spa on the shore, and the highest waterfall in Germany.

A spa & wellness trip through Germany and the Netherlands — 4 days and about 584 km. It is built around 4 places the trip exists to include, all in Germany: Friedrichsbad, Caracalla Therme, Mummelsee and Triberg Waterfalls. Those are kept whatever else you change; the nights, the meals and the stops in between are chosen for the road you actually end up on.

Baden-Baden has been a spa since the Romans built the first pools over the hot springs, and it has never really stopped. The Friedrichsbad is the grand one: a nineteenth-century palace of marble and tile where you go through seventeen stations of warm and hot and cold in the order they tell you, and come out two hours later unable to remember what you were worried about. Next door the Caracalla is the modern one, outdoor pools and saunas in the trees, for anyone who prefers a swimsuit. The Black Forest starts at the edge of town. The Schwarzwaldhochstraße climbs along the ridge to the Mummelsee, a dark lake in a bowl of firs with a hotel on its shore, and on down the range to Triberg, where Germany's highest waterfall drops through the woods in seven steps and the town sells more cuckoo clocks than it has inhabitants. Every valley has a spa hotel with a pool that looks out at the trees. This is a trip for shoulder seasons and rainy forecasts: the baths are best when it is grey outside. Two nights in Baden-Baden and one somewhere deep in the forest is the shape of it, and a comfortable bed is part of the point.

The places this trip exists for

Pinned, not suggested — the planner is required to include every one of them.

Friedrichsbad
🇩🇪 Germany
Seventeen stations of Roman-Irish bathing under a marble dome, the way it was done in 1877.
Caracalla Therme
🇩🇪 Germany
The modern thermal baths next door — outdoor pools, saunas among the trees, swimsuits on.
Mummelsee
🇩🇪 Germany
The dark lake on the ridge road, in a bowl of firs, with a hotel and a walk round the shore.
Triberg Waterfalls
🇩🇪 Germany
Germany's highest waterfall, seven steps through the forest above the cuckoo-clock town.

These are kept whatever you change. Everything else the planner picks is chosen for the road you end up on, and can be swapped.

Mummelsee — Norbert Hüttisch, Karlsruhe · CC BY-SA 3.0

Triberg Waterfalls — MargaritaGagina · CC BY-SA 4.0

One way it works out

From Amsterdam · 4 days · about €836

A real plan, priced the way every trip here is: fuel per country you cross, tolls and vignettes from published tariffs, beds and food from derived local rates. It is one example, not an average — from another town it is a different trip, which is the point of the button below.

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All 4 pinned places are kept — you set the start, the days and who's coming, and the road and the figures are worked out for your door.

The figures above were measured from Amsterdam — yours will differ.