The Hotel Frauenberger was very comfortable, and their restaurant was definitely 5-stars! I learned during a swim that the town of Bad Tabarz only recently earned its designation as a "Bad" (Spa) town. The opening of two clinics in town, one of which provides support for diabetics, gave it the right to call itself Bad Tabarz. Prior to January 2018, it was just the town of Tabarz, I was told. I believe that such towns must also have clean air and water, and a spring that supplies mineral water, which many believe to have health benefits.
Today the hotel was offering a bus ride to Marienglashöhle (St. Mary's Cave). It was a gypsum cave, where gypsum was mined, primarily for inexpensive crystals, such as the ones you often see on Catholic parish church altars.
Gypsum crystals in the Marienglashöhle
We hiked back to Bad Tabarz through a bit of the Thüringian Forest.
Thüringian Forest
Purple foxgloves
We found a small hut, where we could escape from the hot sun, and ate the box lunch the hotel packed for us: salami and cheese Brötchen and apples.
Box lunch in the shade of a hut
Ströbi takes a bite of a salami sandwich
A bit cooler inside than out
While we were resting in the shade, two women came along, and we had the best time visiting. They were from Dresden, and were on holiday, staying in a Ferienwohnung. They had never learned English, growing up in East Germany, so I had to blunder through the conversation in German. I did better than I thought I would.
Fellow hikers Inge (my age) and Chrystal (20 years older and very fit)
We arrived back to the hotel, and I went for a cool swim in the indoor pool. We had dinner at the hotel: an amazingly tender filet mignon with grilled Mediterranean vegetables. Dessert was chocolate mint sorbet in prosecco with 3 berries. And then it was early to bed!
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