GO FEEDBACK:Dublin reader Larry Sheedyignored the cynics and spent nine days in Badenweiler. Where, you might well ask, is that?
'ANY INTERESTING travel lined up for the autumn?"
"I hope so. We're going to spend nine days in Badenweiler."
"Where, or what, in the name of Christopher Columbus is Badenweiler?"
That was the first discouraging reaction that we received to the Cityscapes tour that we found in The Irish Times. When we explained that Badenweiler was a little town with a big baths complex, located snugly on the borders of Germany, France and Switzerland, the wonder grew.
Surely you know that Germans are not very friendly towards tourists? And that part of France, Alsace, is not very French, is it? Why not go to Provence or the Atlantic Coast? Look at Switzerland: I heard a man knock it on the radio the next morning as boring. In almost a lifetime of travel I hadn't had as much early warning.
We flew into Basle, did a 40-minute transfer to Badenweiler and found ourselves in a beautiful, friendly corner of Europe that was packed with surprises. It strengthened our conviction, if that was needed, that you should pay no attention to cynics. On one of our visits to Germany's Black Forest region, for example, I was fascinated, as someone with no particular interest in clocks, by a visit to a clock museum and a one-hour run-through of the history of telling time.
It began with an introduction to a huge medieval timepiece fashioned by a blacksmith and driven by weights. In an era when time was obviously plentiful, there was, wisely, a built-in variation factor of up to 50 minutes per day. At the other end was the atomic clock, with an error factor of something like a second per million years.
By 1800 there were clocks in every town in Europe, and the Black Forest's cottage industry was turning out 100,000 of them each year. Late in the 18th century cuckoo clocks made their first appearance. They were fairly simple to make, because the cuckoo's repertoire is restricted to just two notes, and these are easily reproduced by means of two little bellows and mini-flutes. They went on to become the symbol of the Black Forest.
But here's the interesting bit of news for the cynic. The Germans don't claim to have invented it. They say that they copied the original, which was developed in Italy or possibly Czechoslovakia. Not a mention of Switzerland - until you hear the sad story of the demise of the clockmaking industry in the Black Forest. Evidently, the development of the quartz movement for clocks and watches made clock-making obsolete, and the popular industry that had flourished throughout the region faded away.
There is still a very high-class watch-making industry in Switzerland, however, as anyone rich enough to own a Rolex will testify.
The only fault I could find with our visit to Alsace was that it was too short. Our main focus was on the town of Colmar, where we took a sightseeing tour in a small train.
Its meticulously maintained old houses were beautiful, and its museums were stuffed with treasures. Its favourite son was Frédéric Bartholdi, who, among dozens of other achievements, designed the Statue of Liberty, presented by France to the US to mark the centennial of American independence.
From Colmar we travelled the Alsatian wine route to the ancient village of Riquewihr, passing endless vineyards that have earned fame for wines such as Pinot Blanc, Riesling and, our favourite, Gewürztraminer. In Riquewihr we sampled Gewürztraminer on its home ground, and it was exactly as we expected. The helpful young lady who served our drinks on top of a wooden barrel said that to get the ultimate result from this slightly sweet white wine you should have it with duck-liver pate. That was one of the surprises, so we bought a litre bottle for €6.50 to try it at home.
Her advice was given in a region that claims more Michelin stars per head of population than any other part of France, so we're waiting to get our hands on some nice duck livers.
Then we had Badenweiler itself. It is in the warmest and sunniest part of southern Germany, between the foothills of the Black Forest and the Rhine plain. Its main claim to fame is the thermal springs that make a million litres of warm water per day available to its superb complex of baths and related activities.
These baths were first built by the Romans 2,000 years ago, and the very well-preserved ruins of their indulgence are being excavated.
They claim to have healing properties for people with problems of the vertebrae, joints, muscles, connective tissue and nerves, cardiovascular disease and physical or mental exhaustion.
But you don't have to have anything wrong with you to reap the benefit of a visit. It can be just great fun. There was even a Roman and Irish bath, offering a combination of both traditions.
Our three-star hotel, the Markgraefler Hof (Ernst- Eisenlohr-Strasse 7, 00-49- 7632-75070, www.mark graefler-hof.de) was another treasure. When you stay there you get free access to the baths, about a 10-minute walk away, and our genial host Rolf Sigismunder seemed to be happy to personally collect visitors from Basel airport when you book with him.