The Best Saunas & Baths in Germany

Pools and saunas

A German Therme usually has two parts. The bathing halls hold warm mineral or brine pools, and people wear swimwear there. The sauna area is separate, and in it nobody does: saunas in Germany are mixed and textile-free, and a towel goes under the whole body on the bench. Visitors from abroad are often surprised by this and get used to it within the first hour.

The Aufguss

The centre of a sauna day is the Aufguss. A sauna master pours water scented with oils over the hot stones and drives the steam through the room with a towel, in rounds, often to music. The larger houses publish a timetable and run one every half hour or hour; regulars plan their day around it. Vabali in Berlin, Mediterana in Bergisch Gladbach and the monte mare Seesauna on Lake Tegernsee all work this way, and so do Maritimo in Oer-Erkenschwick and the Panorama Sauna at Grafschaft, whose garden looks toward the Siebengebirge.

Spa towns

Many of the thermal baths sit in spa towns whose names begin with Bad. The water there comes out of the ground warm or salty: brine at Obermain Therme in Bad Staffelstein, at KissSalis in Bad Kissingen and at RupertusTherme in Bad Reichenhall, hot sulphur water at Therme Eins in Bad Füssing. Some of the buildings are much older than the modern wings beside them. Palais Thermal in Bad Wildbad is built around a historic bathing hall with Moorish decoration, and Neptunbad in Cologne occupies a public bath from 1912.

Lakes as plunge pools

Several German venues use a lake or pond as the cold plunge. Guests walk from the sauna into Lake Tegernsee, into Lake Kochel at the Kristall Therme trimini, and off a jetty into the pond at Saunabad Großer Teich in Saxony, where they take ice dips in winter.