The last enchanted place.., p.1
The Last Enchanted Places, page 1
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CONTENTS
Introduction
BELGIUM
1.Spa
BRITAIN
2.Bath
3.Tunbridge Wells
4.Harrogate
5.Buxton
6.Llandrindod Wells and the mid-Welsh spas
7.Woodhall Spa
8.Malvern
GERMANY
9.Baden-Baden
10.Bad Ems and its neighbours
11.Bad Wildungen and Reinhardshausen
12.Bad Wörishofen
AUSTRIA
13.Baden bei Wien
14.Bad Ischl
THE CZECH REPUBLIC
15.Karlovy Vary
16.Mariánské Lázně
17.Jeseník
SWITZERLAND
18.Bad Ragaz
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
INTRODUCTION
In his novel Mont-Oriol, set in an imaginary spa town in the Auvergne region of France, Guy de Maupassant describes such places, known in French as villes d’eaux, or towns of water, as ‘the only true fairylands left on earth’. He goes on:
‘In two months, more things happen there than during the remaining ten in the rest of the world. You would really think that the springs were not so much mineralised as bewitched. You meet specimens there of every race and class, magnificent adventurous, and such a medley of nationalities as you find nowhere else, and the most astonishing incidents occur every day.’
Europe’s spa towns do, indeed, have a distinctive atmosphere which is well captured by the French word that de Maupassant uses, ensorcelées, perhaps best translated into English as bewitched, enchanted or under a spell.
Where does this enchanted, other-worldly quality come from? Principally, I would maintain, from the effervescent, mineral-rich and often hot springs which give the spas their raison d’etre as well as their names. Hidden under rocks or dense undergrowth and originating in remote springs and wells which are difficult to find, these sources (again, the French word is more evocative than the English) have a dark, mysterious character. Water bubbles up as if by magic from the ground, having originally fallen as rain thousands of years ago and slowly percolated through layers of mud, sand and rock, gathering mineral traces and warming up on its journey towards the bowels of the earth. Forced back up to the surface under pressure in certain places because of geological faults and fissures, it emerges sometimes in a trickle or a steady flow but often seething and steaming, gushing out in strong, pulsing ejaculations. Although these natural mineral waters are tamed to provide the basic ingredients of spa treatments, being channelled through pipes into baths and drinking fountains, they retain their wild, primeval character as the product of elemental forces, somehow still awesome and even frightening as well as healing and restorative in their effects.
Penetrating to these sources, where they are to be found and are not hidden away, can be a profoundly mystical experience. I have myself felt this most strongly when descending to the original spring at Baden bei Wien in Austria, discovered by the Romans and called the Römerquelle. It is reached by going through a door in a faceless modern municipal building behind the elegant Edwardian Summer Arena where operettas are performed. A steep flight of steps descends deep into the earth to arrive in a marble-tiled hall with a glass-covered dome under which the spring continually seethes and simmers as if in a witches’ cauldron.
It is no wonder that early descriptions of spas often speak of their waters coming from ‘the very bowels of the earth’ and compare them to the infernal regions of the Underworld. There is often something rather hell-like about their location and atmosphere. This was certainly the case with the original baths at Pfäfers near the Swiss spa town of Bad Ragaz which were located at the bottom of the precipitous Tamina gorge where, after a hair-raising journey, one can still come face to face with the source of Europe’s most prolific mineral water spring.
If the waters themselves provide a mysterious and sometimes distinctly scary aspect to the enchanted quality of spa towns, their physical layout contributes another rather gentler element. As they came into their own as elegant resorts for the well-heeled upper and middle classes, drawn initially by the therapeutic benefits of taking the waters and increasingly by the diversions offered and the chance to mix with the rich and famous, spa towns became the pre-eminent places in Europe in which to be seen and to socialise. They developed a distinct architectural landscape at the centre of which were the bath houses, drinking halls and pump rooms, built either over or near to the water sources and springs. Nearby were promenades and colonnades, assembly rooms, and often a casino, theatre and concert hall. These buildings were generally situated in attractive and extensive gardens and parks, which often took the German name Kurpark, with broad lawns, colourful flower beds, plantations of rare trees, pavilions, fountains and lakes. The architectural style varied from spa to spa, from the sweeping classical crescents of Bath and Buxton, via the warm orange Biedermeir opulence of Baden bei Wien and Baden-Baden, to the more daring neo-baroque and art nouveau extravagance of Karlovy Vary and Mariánske Lázně.
The buildings, which still in many ways define Europe’s historic spa towns, and which are being restored and brought to life again after decades of neglect, display some of the most interesting, quirky and picturesque architectural features to be found anywhere in the Continent. They, too, have a kind of enchanted quality, somehow unreal and belonging to a fairytale world. Several of those who frequented them in their Belle Époque in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries felt that they resembled the stage set for a comic opera. Lady Wolseley described Marienbad, which she regularly visited with her husband, Sir Garnet Wolseley, the famous swashbuckling Victorian soldier, as ‘extremely pretty, just like the scenery of an operetta’. The French architect Le Corbusier described the combined effect of the exuberant proliferation of ornate buildings in Karlsbad as being like ‘a gathering of cakes’.
It is principally their unique architectural legacy which led UNESCO to grant world heritage status to eleven ‘Great Spas of Europe’ in 2021. Seven of these world heritage sites are included in this book – Spa, Bath, Baden-Baden, Bad Ems, Baden bei Wien, Karlovy Vary and Mariánské Lázně – together with other spa towns which are not quite so well-known but which I find to be particularly intriguing and enchanting. Several of them are members of the European Historic Thermal Towns Association (EHTTA), a network of forty spa towns across fifteen countries committed to preserving and publicising Europe’s thermal cultural heritage and promoting travel to spa towns through ventures such as the European Route of Historic Thermal Towns, one of the cultural routes launched and certified by the Council of Europe.
If it is as heritage sites that Europe’s spa towns are perhaps now most valued and recognised, their enchanted quality does not just rest on their past glories and nostalgic feel, but also on the cultural diversions and opportunities for relaxation and de-stressing that they continue to offer today. The music that was initially provided as a distraction for those undergoing the tedium of a cure is now a major attraction for those coming as tourists to what were Europe’s first holiday resorts. Spa music has a particularly enchanted quality, whether it be the trios playing during afternoon tea in the Bath Assembly Rooms and over coffee and Kuchen in Zauner’s café on the esplanade at Bad Ischl, or the full-scale orchestras performing in the Kur concerts in Baden-Baden or Mariánské Lázně. The dance halls and casinos survive, bringing their own kind of music to the spa experience.
Europe’s spa towns have become the venues for some of the Continent’s major summer music festivals, not least in the fields of operetta and light music which have provided the accompaniment to taking the waters for the last two centuries or so. Several also host art and literary festivals, a highly appropriate development given how many artists, musicians, poets and novelists found patronage and gained their inspiration from their stays in spas. A list of works written in or based around spa towns would include symphonies by Beethoven and Brahms, most of the operettas of Johann Strauss and Franz Lehár, Goethe’s poems, and novels by Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Thackeray, Mark Twain, Günter Grass and Hermann Hesse.
There are other less visible and tangible factors at work in making spa towns among Europe’s last enchanted places. Their traditional role as places of healing is still important, as witnessed by the numerous sanatoria and clinics to be found clustered round Kurparks. Th is can make for a somewhat wistful, melancholy, bittersweet atmosphere. The presence of the patients who frequent them is haunting and, in some ways, disturbing – but they, too, are under a kind of spell, seeking and hoping for a cure, or at least for some respite and remission from pain and sickness. They often come alone and can become prone to the spa guest’s besetting temptation of introspection and melancholy.
There is another temptation to which spa goers have traditionally succumbed, which can be bewitching, if also bothering and bewildering. It is summed up in the German word Der Kurschatten, literally the cure shadow, to which I was introduced by a German academic as we walked through the deserted streets of Bad Wildbad, itself a rather haunted spa town hidden away in the middle of the Black Forest. She told me that it signifies ‘the shadow who is following you throughout your stay and disappears when you go home’. The word is generally used to describe the romantic and amorous dalliances that regularly took place in spas during their golden age, and much more occasionally still do today. It is often taken to suggest a spa romance which never gets beyond the stage of imagination and fantasy. The idea is expressed visually in the Kurschattenbrunnen fountain sculptured in 1987 in the central square of the spa town of Bad Wildungen in Germany. A group of naked bathers are clustered close together in the centre of the fountain. In one of the pools around its base, an elderly naked man sits looking out towards a female figure walking past in a figure-hugging dress. Depending on the position of the sun, she casts a shadow over her admirer.
There were many reasons why those staying in spas seem to have been particularly susceptible to amorous dalliances. The principle of romances on ocean liners, that ‘what goes on board stays on board’, pertained among those taking a cure, who were often without an accompanying spouse, spending anything from two or three weeks to several months away from home, and unlikely to meet their fellow patients again. These circumstances were conducive to the formation of relationships and encouraged a belief that casual flings could be indulged in with no lasting consequences. But more often than not they were in the mind only.
If the enchanted fairytale atmosphere of spa towns has been conducive to romantic dreams and fantasies, it has also given them an air of mystery and intrigue. It was not accidental, I think, that Agatha Christie, the queen of crime fiction, made Spa in Belgium the birthplace of her famous detective, Hercule Poirot, nor that she herself chose Harrogate as the place to reappear after her sensational and much-publicised disappearance from her home in 1926.
For many who have stayed in them, spas have had the character of Utopias, promising escape, relief from pain, and perhaps even lasting cure from debilitating and frightening medical and psychological conditions. As we move away from drug-based therapies to more natural and holistic remedies, there is every reason for rediscovering the ancient and well attested therapeutic benefits of taking the waters. Recent medical research has pointed to the physical benefits of drinking more water and the psychological and spiritual benefits to be gained from swimming, or from simply contemplating flowing water.
In the early eighteenth century, Britain paved the way in the development of the planned spa town with its regime of cures, diversions and rules of etiquette, centred around the wells, pump rooms, baths, concert salons, and assembly and gaming halls. However, from the early nineteenth century onwards, the British largely forsook inland spas for coastal resorts where they could enjoy the more bracing pleasures of sea bathing and the entertainments that went with it. The coming of the National Health Service in 1948 led to the closure of the remaining UK treatment centres based on the use of mineral or thermal water in the second half of the twentieth century. After decades of neglect, however, several British spas are being restored and reopened. It is possible to bathe again in the thermal waters at Bath and Buxton and to enjoy a Turkish bath in the former Royal Baths at Harrogate. The former pump rooms at Woodhall Spa and Llandrindod Wells have been refurbished. A new Water in the Wells initiative is pressing for the regeneration of the spa-town heritage of Tunbridge Wells by installing, maintaining and promoting water features in the hope that ‘our all-but waterless spa can be revitalised and rejuvenated’.
Many of the traditional spa towns in Germany and central Europe have retained their baths, pump rooms, hospitals and clinics and remain places of health and healing. There has long been a greater emphasis on the medical aspects of bathing in and drinking natural mineral and thermal waters in Continental spas than in their British counterparts. It is summed up in the different words used to describe spa towns. In English they tended to be known as watering places but in the German speaking world as Kurorte (cure places). The importance of Der Kur, with its medical connotations and strict regime, and understood as a course of treatment and period of rest which does not necessarily bring about full recovery from serious illness or accident, is emphasised in the way that visitors to German spas have always been called Kurgäste rather than just spa guests, as in English. I will frequently be using both the words Kurorte and Kurgäste, and occasionally the comparable French term curistes with its similar connotations, in the pages that follow.
People continue to come to many Continental spa towns today, as they have for several centuries, to undertake cures, still based around drinking and bathing in the natural mineral waters but also increasingly involving a range of other therapies, exercise and dieting regimes. As well as specialising in treating physical complaints, including rheumatism and arthritis, cancer, bronchial and post-operative rehabilitation, clinics and sanatoria in German and central European spa towns are increasingly focusing on psychosomatic complaints, stress, burnout and mental illness. It would be good to see some of Britain’s traditional spa towns taking on this role.
This book can be read as a kind of love letter to Europe’s traditional spa towns, which have for so long been places of resort, healing, gossip, intrigue, inspiration, dissipation and much more. Although they are now, as I am, in the autumn of their lives, they are well poised to serve the contemporary quest for wellness, de-stressing and slow tourism. They may lack the permanent sunshine and trendy therapies of the beach resorts of the Mediterranean, Asia, North Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America, which regularly top the best spa lists and now account for the lion’s share of the $6.32 trillion global wellness industry. But they more than make up in terms of history, heritage, culture and atmosphere. The quieter and gentler inland spas of Europe still have that bewitched, enchanted quality that has attracted so many visitors over the centuries and has made me keep coming back to them over my lifetime. I hope to share some of that special quality with you over the pages that follow and perhaps even make you equally spa struck.
I have been fascinated by spa towns and their distinctive ambience since adolescence. I attribute the origins of this near obsession to the fact that I grew up near Tunbridge Wells in Kent. Visits there in my teens began my lifelong love affair with the quirkiness and other-worldly quality of these places which owe their origin to healing waters and their fame to visits from royalty and aristocracy.
I have been visiting spa towns and writing and broadcasting about them for over fifty years. This book recounts my travels through seven in the United Kingdom, six in Germany, three in the Czech Republic, two in Austria and one each in Belgium and Switzerland. I offer it both as a travel guide to those who may be tempted to follow in my footsteps and visit some or all of these places, and also as a testament to the atmosphere and history of these distinctive and enchanted places which I hope may entertain and enlighten those who for whatever reason are not planning to visit them. Each chapter describes the origins, development and contemporary ambience of a spa town where I have stayed, and where possible, taken a cure. For each one, there is a description of a particular experience of enchantment, which has for me expressed the beguiling character of the place. There are also five suggested things to do and suggestions for further reading.
This is a selective rather than comprehensive guide to European spa towns. It does not cover any in France, Italy, Spain, or in the spa-rich lands of Poland, Hungary, Rumania or the Balkan states. I was tempted to include the very atmospheric and popular baths of Budapest, where I have spent many happy hours soaking and steaming, but it is in reality a city of spas rather than a spa town in the traditional sense that I have defined it. My focus is largely on Britain, where the concept of the spa town really began, and on those German speaking countries where the culture of Die Kur has been and continues to be especially embedded, and its importance to healthy living particularly recognised.
