Eleven spa towns, one World Heritage site: Marienbad and its sister towns in Europe

Marienbad is not alone

On 24 July 2021 the UNESCO World Heritage Committee inscribed The Great Spa Towns of Europe on the World Heritage List. The serial property consists of eleven towns in seven countries — and Marienbad is one of them. What the inscription means for our town is described on our page on UNESCO World Heritage and in the article Why Marienbad is on the UNESCO list. Here we go a step further and introduce the ten sister towns.

The property was inscribed on the basis of criteria (ii) and (iii): as testimony to an exchange of ideas that influenced medicine and spa practice, and as exceptional testimony to the European spa culture that flourished from about 1700 into the 1930s.

What makes a "great spa town"

The towns differ in size, landscape and architectural style, but they share a basic pattern that runs through all eleven:

• Springs and spa buildings where the water was used: baths, pump rooms and drinking halls, and building types such as the Kurhaus and the Kursaal.
• Places for gentle exercise: promenades, colonnades and galleries, spa parks and gardens, and a network of paths in the surrounding woods.
• Social venues: assembly rooms, casinos, theatres, concert halls and ballrooms where people met.
• Hotels and villas in great numbers, because guests came in large groups.
• Spa-related infrastructure such as funiculars to viewpoints or restaurants, railway connections and facilities for bottling the water.
• Vistas linking the buildings with the surrounding landscape.

The eleven towns in brief

Austria: Baden bei Wien

Only 30 kilometres from Vienna, Baden was a favourite summer resort of the Habsburgs and at the same time a meeting place for high-level politics. The town combines Biedermeier architecture of the early nineteenth century with buildings from around 1900. At the centre of the spa quarter lies the Kurpark with the Kurhaus, the drinking hall, the Sommerarena and the music pavilion. Musically the place is associated with Mozart, Beethoven and Johann Strauss.

Belgium: Spa

Spa, the "pearl of the Belgian Ardennes", helped as early as the seventeenth century to win recognition for mineral water as a remedy. The water was sent all over Europe, and the name of the town entered the English language as "spa". The springs on a wooded slope south of the town are still linked to the centre by forest promenades. Spa was known as the "Café of Europe" and as a pioneer of gaming. In the nineteenth century a spa town with French classical architecture grew up here; today a new thermal centre overlooking the town continues the tradition.

Czech Republic: Františkovy Lázně, Karlovy Vary and Mariánské Lázně

All three Czech towns belong to the West Bohemian spa triangle — and all three are easy to reach from Marienbad.

Františkovy Lázně (Franzensbad) is a spa town laid out to a plan in the nineteenth century. Its harmonious appearance rests on baroque symmetry and a triple belt of parks in which 24 springs and their pavilions are linked by long, straight promenades. Extensive forests and peat bogs surround the town; Franzensbad is regarded as one of the first peat spas in the world. Goethe, too, was a repeated guest here.

Karlovy Vary (Karlsbad) is known as the "open-air salon of Europe", which hosted royal families, heads of state and artists. Its hallmarks are the geyser-like Vřídlo spring and the rich spa ensemble in the valley of the Teplá, with historicist and Art Nouveau buildings. Terraced valley sides, villas, promenades and lookout structures shape the spa landscape. The drinking cure can still be seen on the colonnades: guests with the traditional porcelain spa cup in hand.

Mariánské Lázně (Marienbad) is the "spa in the park", a "new spa town" of the early nineteenth century. From the 1870s the place gained international standing as a meeting point of royal houses and aristocracy, as a venue for political negotiations and scientific gatherings and as a source of inspiration for the arts. The picture includes the many mineral springs, the central park, the colonnade and the Singing Fountain, and an ensemble of spa buildings from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Springs rise in a belt of wooded hills threaded by paths for walking. The spa tradition is still practised in Marienbad in the original spa buildings with their preserved fittings.

France: Vichy

Vichy, the "queen of spa towns", played a major part in shaping the European bathing culture of the nineteenth century. It lies on the plain beside the river Allier and combines Parisian town planning with spa promenades in the middle of the town. Napoleon III encouraged the building of the new spa town with parks and boulevards, a cosmopolitan "Little Paris" with large bathing establishments, drinking halls, covered promenades, a casino, a theatre, hotels and villas.

Germany: Bad Ems, Baden-Baden and Bad Kissingen

Bad Ems is a compact "imperial spa" in a deeply cut valley, in which you can read how European bathing culture changed over the centuries. The thermal springs are grouped by the river, and the spa quarter lies there too. The buildings range from the medieval "Wildbad" through the court life of the baroque to the fashionable resort of the nineteenth century. The surroundings offer demanding trails and high rock viewpoints.

Baden-Baden, the "summer capital of Europe", was a favoured destination of the ruling and cultural elite in the nineteenth century. Lying on the western edge of the Black Forest, the place has used its mineral water since antiquity. The spa quarter grew up on the other side of the Oos from the old town; the Kurhaus and casino made the town world-famous. Historic and new thermal baths stand side by side to this day, and music and theatre are kept alive.

Bad Kissingen combines nineteenth-century neoclassicism with the modernism of the reform era around 1900. The architect Max Littmann built and renewed almost the entire spa district. The town developed outside the medieval fortifications along the springs and the river Saale; spa garden, parks and wooded slopes flow into one another. From 1874 the Imperial Chancellor Otto von Bismarck came repeatedly; his living quarters are preserved in the Upper Saltworks building.

Italy: Montecatini Terme

Montecatini Terme is the "garden spa of Europe": a garden spa of the late eighteenth century became a landscape spa. The monumental spa architecture is grouped around four main springs in an oasis of gardens, park and promenades. The vegetation gives way to pine woods and terraced olive groves, and a historic funicular climbs to Montecatini Alto. Verdi, Puccini and Leoncavallo were among the artists who were guests here.

United Kingdom: Bath

Bath is regarded as one of the earliest and most influential of the "great spa towns". Around a centre of hot springs the spacious Georgian city arose in the eighteenth century, frequently visited by royal families and the high aristocracy. Palladian ensembles, crescents and squares define it. The town's masters of ceremonies devised rules of conduct that helped shape polite society and served as a model for many spa towns on the Continent. The hot springs have been managed there for some 2,000 years.

Several towns, one trip

The initiative recommends visiting the spa towns not all at once but in groups of two or three — and staying at least three days in each, so that there is time to rest as well as to sightsee. Ticking off all eleven in one trip would take about three weeks and would be anything but relaxing.

Seven of the eleven towns form a Central European cluster: Baden bei Wien, the three Czech towns and the three German ones. Marienbad is a good base for excursions to its neighbours: Karlsbad and Franzensbad lie in the same spa triangle; more on our day-trip pages for Karlovy Vary and Františkovy Lázně.

A pleasant footnote: according to the initiative's media kit, the future King Edward VII visited at least eight of the eleven spa towns. If you would like to explore Marienbad in his footsteps, there is King Edward's Trail.

A note on spa treatment

If you are planning a spa stay in one of these towns: the spa doctor on the spot decides on treatments and treatment plans, and what is on offer differs from house to house. For Marienbad, see our overview of the mineral springs.

Sources

Studies and official documents this article relies on. Our content does not replace medical advice.

1. Great Spas of Europe — media kit and frequently asked questions (07/2021), secretariat of the Great Spas of Europe — Printed media kit of the initiative (CZ/DE), as of July 2021, before the inscription on the World Heritage List; basis for the short portraits of the eleven towns and the travel tips. The criteria for inscription and the present name of the site are taken from our page on UNESCO World Heritage, not from the media kit.
2. The Great Spa Towns of Europe — joint website of the eleven towns — Official site of the World Heritage property with all its components.
3. UNESCO World Heritage — Marienbad.com — Inscription on 24 July 2021, criteria (ii) and (iii), the Marienbad component.

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