A Journey Through Germany’s Famous Spa Towns
Inspired by his Grandmother’s adoration of Baden-Baden, William Cook heads to the famed German spa town via Aachen and Wiesbaden to feel the restorative power of the thermal springs and make peace with being naked among strangers.
7 January 2023
My German grandmother never liked to talk about the past, but her eyes always lit up whenever I asked her about Baden-Baden. This elegant spa town in southern Germany, a short drive from the French border, was the only place that she ever spoke about revisiting in her forsaken homeland: in occupied Hamburg just after World War II, she fell in love with a British officer and followed him back to the UK. “We’ll go together,” she used to tell me, but we both knew it would never happen. She said she was too old to travel, but I believe the real reason was that she was afraid – afraid to be reminded of what she’d left behind.
After she died, I did go to Baden-Baden and I too fell in love with it. Hidden in a lush, green valley, shielded by the dark wooded hills of the Black Forest, it felt like a relic of those halcyon days she used to talk about: before the Third Reich, before the war. The town is stately yet sedate, with a grandeur quite out of keeping with its compact size. Oddly perhaps, it is home to the country’s best hotel, biggest opera house and most opulent casino.
The reason for such affluent development in this small, unprepossessing town, and what has always drawn visitors here, is Baden-Baden’s thermal springs. The Celts came first, followed by the Romans, who were lured by the promise of the water’s healing powers or simply by the prospect of some rest and recreation. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, the wider world forgot about Baden-Baden until the beginning of the 19th century, when bathing in hot, smelly mineral water (and even drinking it) became fashionable again. Aristocrats from all over Europe came to partake, and a flamboyant resort sprang up around Baden-Baden’s antique bathhouses and drinking fountains.
Around the same time, dozens of other spa towns throughout Germany began to flourish. The country was booming then: the advent of the railways made international travel easier and more affordable, and the newly-moneyed bourgeoisie had time on its hands and cash to spend. There’s no such upswing now, but after the interminable slog of the pandemic, including my own bout with the virus, the restorative promise of these places beckoned me.
Aachen
Aachen, four-and-a-half hours by train from London, was the first to call out. Today it’s a busy commuter town near both the Dutch and Belgian borders, but at one time it was the center of the Western world. Founded by the Romans, it was revived in the Dark Ages by Emperor Charlemagne, who crowned it the capital of his European empire. (He enjoyed a good soak.)
During World War II, Aachen was the first German city to fall to the invading Allies, but only after a fierce street battle, from which it still bears the scars. Yet the Altstadt, or Old Town, is charming: a cluster of gingerbread houses and cobbled alleyways, like a scene from a Grimm’s fairy tale. Usually thronged with tourists, it was quiet as I wandered around. I realized that it is still slowly, reluctantly awakening from the spectre of the pandemic, the latest siege in its long history.
At Carolus Thermen, the sprawling bathhouse complex in Aachen’s leafy Stadtpark, whose waters Charlemagne once relied on to soothe his rheumatism, the soft sound of rushing water was punctuated by the trill of voices. It was busy the last time I visited, but tonight even more so, and the clientele seemed younger: teenagers and 20-somethings flirting, gossiping and having fun. The Romans would have felt at home here today, I thought; human nature hasn’t changed. Then, as now, people came for a bit of exercise but mainly to meet friends and catch up on the local news.
Wiesbaden
Suitably refreshed, I strode beneath an inky black sky back to my quarters at the Parkhotel Quellenhof Aachen, a tremendous early 20th-century monument to Prussian hubris. In the morning, my vim intact, I caught a train south to Wiesbaden. Like Aachen, Wiesbaden was a Roman settlement, but its subsequent history is very different. An obscure backwater during the Middle Ages, it became a boom town in the 1800s, when spas were the go-to resorts for the upper classes. As I wandered along its lonely avenues, I felt the legacy of that lost golden age hanging heavy all around me: colonnades and fountains, broad boulevards lined with austere villas – all remnants of an era that vanished forever in World War I.
The palatial Kurhaus (“cure house”), home to the town’s casino, is one such ornate artefact. Frequently, the main building in places such as Wiesbaden combines a casino, restaurant, banqueting hall and sometimes Trinkhalle, or drinking fountain, though generally not baths. This one was where Dostoevsky lost all his money, a calamity that inspired his dark novella The Gambler. “I sit brooding in this melancholy little town,” he wrote, “and how melancholy the little towns of Germany can be!”
Wiesbaden came through World War II relatively unscathed, and today there are enough boutique stores and smart bistros that the original spa stuff can be a bit obscured. After a little while, I found the Kaiser-Friedrich-Therme. Built in 1913, the bathhouse is a perfect period piece, an exquisite example of fin-de-siècle decor.
As in many traditional spas in Germany, bathing suits are verboten, which takes some getting used to. At first, it feels odd mingling in the nude, but after a while, you become accustomed to it and realize no one cares. The first time I stripped off in one of these places, I felt terribly self-conscious, but now, being middle-aged, I felt invisible. Nobody paid me any attention. I’d become a sort of ghost.
Baden-Baden
The next morning, after another ride south, I emerged in Baden-Baden. I’d reserved a room at Brenners, my favourite hotel in Germany. It’s a place that never seems to change, rather like the town, which has been virtually untouched by the catastrophes of the last century. From the sunlit dining room, you look out across Lichtentaler Allee, a tree-lined park where women in fur coats walk their dachshunds. Although my grandmother died 20 years ago, I could picture her among them.
Crossing the hotel park after dinner, I came upon the casino. Festooned with mirrors and chandeliers and dripping with gold leaf, it’s even more extravagant than the one in Wiesbaden. You can see why Marlene Dietrich called it the most beautiful casino in the world. Dostoevsky came here too, so Baden-Baden claims credit for The Gambler, but the spa town in his book is called Roulettenburg, which I reckon is a mixture of Wiesbaden and Baden-Baden.
Later, I took to the waters of Caracalla Spa, propelling myself through a narrow tunnel into an outdoor pool. It was dark, the air was cold and minty, and steam was rising from the warm water. I was surrounded by people of all ages, all looking so happy. “I left my rheumatism in Baden Baden,” wrote Mark Twain. “Baden-Baden is welcome to it.”
Where to Stay
A hotel since 1872 and now part of the Oetker Collection, Brenners Park-Hotel & Spa has retained the understated elegance of a stately English home. Look out for the Joshua Reynolds portrait above the fireplace in the drawing room and the adjoining Villa Stéphanie, one of Europe’s most exclusive private spas, with serious medical programmes.
Where to Eat
Rizzi the Restaurant is what Germans call a “treffpunkt” or “meeting point.” For the well-heeled clientele, the steak, sushi and seafood platters are in some ways secondary to the people watching and being seen on the parkside patio or under the neon sign that reads, “Together is my favourite place to be.”
Where to Bathe
Caracalla Spa is a replica of a Roman bathhouse built on the foundations of one that stood there 2,000 years ago. It has hot- and cold-water grottoes, a brine-inhalation room and aromatic steam baths. The dome-roofed Friedrichsbad next door offers a more traditional bathing experience.
