THE AUSTRIAN ALPINE SPA TOWN WITH A CELEBRITY FAN BASE
There’s a Mozartplatz in the small town of Bad Gastein, an hour or so’s drive from his birthplace, Salzburg. There’s a Mozart hotel, a Mozart bar and various other venues named for Austria’s greatest composer. This is curious, given that Mozart never visited. His mother, however, did. Having lost her first two children, her doctors advised her to take the cure in the famous spa town of Bad Gastein – and afterwards, she gave birth to little Wolfgang Amadeus. So, as they will assuredly tell you in Gastein, without them, there would never have been a Mozart at all. QED.
It was, of course, very common to take a cure in a spa town in the 18th century – but Bad Gastein’s offering was a little different from the rest. Spa towns are traditionally built around thermal waters, with a combination of heat and minerals that bring health benefits and pain relief. These waters are plentiful in Bad Gastein (there are some 19 thermal springs here), but they have an unusual ingredient.
Mined for gold and silver since Roman times, the thermal caves had lain unworked for some time, when – in the 1940s – Hitler reopened them: and a curious thing happened. Instead of the exhaustion you might expect from such an arduous job, the miners came out of the caves every day feeling better than when they went in. Bad backs, lung conditions and rheumatism disappeared. They even felt less stressed.
It turned out that, inside the Rad Hausberg mountain, intense heat (37-41C) and humidity (75-100 per cent) combined with radon to bring about remarkably beneficial effects. Isn’t radon radioactive, you ask? Indeed, it is. However, in the small quantities you are exposed to here, it stimulates the cellular metabolism, reduces free radicals and activates healing, anti-inflammatory messengers.
The results from a three-week course of treatment are, on average, pain relief, anti-inflammatory effects, and even stress relief. All this from lying on a bed in the dimly lit, steamy cave known as the Gasteiner Heilstollen (healing tunnel) and perspiring constantly for an hour.
Mozart’s mother wouldn’t have gone inside the mountain, of course. She would have soaked in the celebrated waters, transported in wooden pipes to wooden tubs, for a treatment known as balneology (bathing therapy). She wouldn’t have been alone. The Archbishop of Salzburg took the cure, as did Otto von Bismarck. Tsars, kings, the Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II, Empress Elisabeth (Sisi) of Austria all flocked here and, of course, needed somewhere to stay.
The result is a town with a population of just 4,000 people that not only had the first ever train station in the Alps (opened by Emperor Franz Joseph in 1905), it also disdained the rural Austrian architecture you’ll find throughout the mountains. In fact, Bad Gastein looks more like Salzburg or the Ringstrasse. No rustic wooden balconies here – but plenty of porticoes and pillars, crystal chandeliers, and an awful lot of marble.
As the word spread, it wasn’t just royalty who visited. Later, Schubert arrived (he later composed the Gasteiner sonata for “the most intense landscape I’ve ever seen”). Thomas Mann, Einstein, Churchill and the Roosevelts came. Sigmund Freud, having heard that a benefit of the cure was an increase in male virility (he also liked the idea that watery orgies took place in the communal tubs), enjoyed six two-month stays.
The Shah of Iran had plans to buy up the entire place. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle went and, inspired by the extraordinary waterfall that crashes through the centre of the town, came up with the Reichenbach Falls as a way of getting rid of Sherlock Holmes and his arch-enemy Moriarty.
In more recent times, the waters and thermal caves have regained their popularity. This is partly due to the fact that the cure is now recognised – and often funded by – the German and Austrian health authorities for around 10,000 people annually. The town’s sheer quirkiness continues to attract, too.
Over the years everyone from Shirley Bassey to Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gustav Klimt to Bruce Willis, and Marlene Dietrich to U2 have made their pilgrimages. Wes Anderson was advised to have a look at the town’s Grand Hotel de l’Europe as inspiration for his Grand Budapest Hotel, while Hugh Grant is a regular visitor. He calls it Good Gastein. That sounds about right.
Essentials
Hotel Bismarck in nearby Bad Hofgastein has double rooms, including all meals, from £294 per night. It has its own spa with filtered (non-Radon) thermal waters in the pool and Radon baths using unfiltered thermal water.
Easyjet (easyjet.com) flies twice weekly from London Gatwick to Salzburg from £67 return.
Anna Selby was a guest of SalzburgerLand (salzburgerLand.com) and Gastein (gastein.com)
2024-05-08T14:01:17Z dg43tfdfdgfd