Friedrichsbad, something a little different

How to know you’re in Europe is when you stop and notice that you’re twenty years old and drinking wine in public while writing a blog on your Mac about your nude spa day.

And this is where I stop everything and quickly and honestly assure all my good, American culture-raised friends and family that this is one of Europe’s most respected and repudiated spas. It is just that, well, it is German.

To explain, if I were to pin an adjective on the Germans it would be “clean.” I do not mean the germ phobic sort of clean. The atmosphere is too relaxed for that. I mean the sort of clean that specifically calls for separate and strict sets of dishrags and floor rags in the kitchen*. I mean the sort of clean that demands rigorous and law-enforced recycling everywhere. I also mean the sort of clean that calls for Friedrichsbad to be a nude spa because it is hard to imagine getting into a bath tub in a swimming suit and expecting to be as clean as if you just went in nude.

I also want to point out that Friedrichsbad is unique in being a nude spa as not all spas in Germany are like that but those same spas also have focuses away from cleanliness, A good example is the other major spa in Baden-Baden, Caracalla, that uses bathing suits and focuses more on a swimming pool-like experience. They rely on using jets and temperature rather than simple cleaning properties of the mountain mineral water. One must already be clean before entering the facilities of Caracalla.

I found no issue with being nude for a couple of reasons. First, as a nude spa every expects everyone to be...nude. Making a fuse can be more embarrassing than just sucking it up and going in. Second, just because people are nude doesn’t mean that only “the beautiful people” go there. To give an idea, the typical Baden-Baden dweller is either ancient, sick, or really, really passionate about their health. So regular people go to the spas here and they are of ALL ages (as long as they are over fourteen—spa rules) and ALL body types. Twenty somethings like me come. Eighty- and ninety- somethings come. From the skinniest man to the most round woman, EVERYONE is there and doing the same thing in the same facilities. No one cares if you have something like cellulite, a huge scar, a wart, or whatever is there. Everyone else has their own inperfections. Looking at it that way, it is almost freeing being in an environment like that. Don’t think I’ll be joining a nudist colony anytime soon though!

So how does this Friedrichsbad Spa “thing” work one might ask. That is a good question as I’m sure that there is nothing else like it in the world.

Entering the spa is something like entering a building that should be like a town hall, a museum, or some official public service building. Of course, one has to remember, this is Baden-Baden, roughly translated as “Bath-Bath.” Bathing here is a necessary service unto the public. This is why you come and this is why the spas in Baden-Baden are one of the few luxuries available not just to the rich few. For 31€ I chose not just the bath but also the optional brush-and-soap massage. Note that this is the most expensive option. Forgoing the massage, one pays 21€. After studying in not-so-cheap France for two months, this is an awesome deal.

The receptionist directs you to the changing rooms; boys on the left, girls on the right. Certain days of the week will allow you and your partner of the opposite sex go to the same changing room and bath side-by-side. Otherwise men and women are completely separate save for stages ten and eleven that are full bathes.

Walking into an open changing room, you simply undress, take a provided towel and put things like your clothes and all necessary cosmetics for after the bath in a locker. You are able to lock it with a special chip on your wrist like a watch that keeps with you throughout the visit. It is important to note that the only things you take with you now are your towel, your chip, and yourself.

An attendant will always be waiting outside the locker room to help you get started and direct as the experience can seem complicated the first time going through. “Bathing” is really done in steps. This particular spa was designed after the ancient Roman bathes and the experience is divided up into 17 stages. As I mentioned before, this is something very unique.

Stage one is the showers. Very straight forward, soap is provided and initial “dirtiness” is washed away.

Stage two and three are air bathes. They are just like saunas but with gorgeously decorated tiles, murals, and decorated ceilings. Chairs and lounges made of fragrant wood are provided to lie down or sit with a towel. The first room is 54° C (129.2° F), followed by the next room, which is 68°C (154.4°F).

Stage four brings you right back to the showers and the massage if you requested it. Then you continue on to stages five and six for the Thermal steam bath, the most unique part of the spa. Friedrichsbad is the only place in the world that has a Thermal steam room powered solely and uninhibitedly by the steam and heat of the earth. 45° C (154.4°F) is found at the bottom of the room. For 48°C (118.4°F) (and a higher concentration of the mineralized steam) you must sit on the stone platforms in the middle of the room. Because everyone is nude, mats are obligatory and given out for hygiene on the same used surface. I think it also makes sitting on rock a lot more comfortable, bathing suit or not.

Stages nine, ten, and eleven are one thermal bath after another. They are designed to slowly bring your body temperature down after the thermal bath with 36°C (96.8 °F), followed by 34°C(93.2 °F), and followed by 28°C(82.4 °F).

Then we’re off to the same showers again!

Stage thirteen is a cold water bath of just 18°C(64.4°F)! Touching it once, my face must have inspired the attendant some mercy as she asked me in halting English, “You prefer just warm towel dry off?” Why, yes, I think so.

The towels used at this, stage fourteen, are gigantic, warmed barely corn towels. They were so huge for my five foot, three body, I was glad for the attendant to help me navigate and get it wrapped around me.

One waits awhile in the toweling off area in order that no one feels crowded in stage fifteen, the cream service. The spa has its own line of soaps, lotions, and bathing brushes and it is at the cream service, that you get to try out the lotions for yourself. I used the amber scented one and have to give it credit as a good lotion that leaves one moisturized but not greasy.

Now it can be really tempting to try and be modest and not spend a lot of time with the cream station by just scantly rubbing yourself with lotion. Be sure that you make an effort to at least look like you mean to get all over your body as a guy next to me got “caught” by an attendant who said he needed to get all over to make it worth it…so she helped him. This is just a caution to lotion yourself or someone will do it for you. You decide what you’d prefer.

My favorite stage is stage sixteen, the relaxation room. They really should call it the cocoon room. An attendant walks you out of the cream service when you’re all clean and good smelling, and directs you to one of dozens of beds in a domed, tranquil room where the only light is what softly cracks through heavy drapes. Once on the bed, you’re wrapped in soft, warm purple blankets (hence, the cocoon feeling) and are left to drift off to sleep.

The seventeenth and final stage is enjoyable as well as when you are done napping, you can grab a fresh towel and head to the reading room with large windows giving natural light and there are dozen of well-known magazines in German, Russian, French, and, of course, English. I was able to get caught up on this weeks issue of ELLE (French version). The Crime and Punishment Expo at D’Orsay according to the issue is rather a success in Paris and I hope I get to go.

When you’re good and ready to go, you just head back to the locker room, get your things, and become set to walk the streets of Baden-Baden with the same relaxed look you had noticed on everyone else’s face. Only now, you know why.


*Credit to Jessica and her mother, Dorothy, for that statement