With few friends I have a Sunday routine of visiting thermal baths. It’s one of the few activities that keeps me look forward for Sunday.
Going to Baden-Baden Caracalla thermal bath, we did do a short city tour and had a coffee at a nice patisserie, and an amazing dinner at a georgian restaurant. All good, all nice, we are happy. Then one of my friends mentioned that the city is empty. There is no one at the city centre, it’s all quite. Feels deserted.
It’s not just in Baden-Baden though. I live at the city center of Stuttgart, and the same scene I see here. On Sundays the city is quite, empty, almost dead-a-like. There is a “Sonntagsruhe” (Sunday rest) concept in Germany. It is when all the commercial and public doors are closed to the customers’ face (except few critical places like hospitals, police, etc.). It’s a great for the people who are working in those places to take a rest, but closing everything on Sunday, just because?!
There are only 2 days in a week where a person working the other 5 days can have a nice time, do whatever they want, go for shopping, etc… Theoretically. In practice, it is only Saturday where one needs to pack everything in. Because the other day is dead Sunday. Even going out feels depressive, seeing empty streets, having all places closed, the lack of social life. I might be wrong. Maybe that’s how it should be. Even if it is, sorry, it is boring and dull.
To make the Sunday less dead, there are few activities worth to try out:
- Going out and eating in a restaurant (find an open one)
- Hiking or Cycling
- Visiting museums
- Going to spa or mineral/thermal baths
- Taking part in community events
- Cooking and inviting people over (you need to buy the ingredients on Saturday though).