“You know, this is the naked spa,” the German woman said to Marilynn and me in perfect English. While she probably spoke perfect English anyway, I like to think her flawless pronunciation was the result of having to remind dozens of tourists during each shift that the Friedrichsbad spa in Baden-Baden, Germany, is what they call “textile-free” every day except for Wednesday and Saturday.
The swimsuit option only became available last summer, because the Victorians bathed au naturel, just like God intended. There are no separate rooms (or days) for men and women. You drop 38 Euro for the privilege of dropping trou and getting your 17-station Roman-Irish bathing experience on. The apparent highlight is the soap and brush massage where someone soaps your body for 10 minutes. Those slots fill up quickly, though, and getting naked in front of other people was adventure enough for us.
And it was an experience that everyone should try, at least once.
Getting Beyond the Buff
During our first trip to Baden-Baden in 2023 with Declan, we enjoyed a fantastic, relaxing day out at Caracalla Spa, which shares ownership with Friedrichsbad. We knew the latter spa was “textile-free,” and there was no way we’d be doing that with our then 18-year-old. Because I’m a bit of a smart arse, I even made up my own German word for textile-free bathing: “donge-swingen.”
At that time, I said it wasn’t for me. But two years older and with no son in sight, Marilynn convinced me to give it a try. Although the naked part did take some getting used to, it was a truly relaxing experience, and I slept better that night than I had in a long time.
After paying for your experience, you don a plastic wristband that opens your locker and doff everything else. In your locker, you’ll find a “towel” that feels more like a white tablecloth and that could have encircled me twice. After an initial shower, you leave the tablecloth behind and get a pair of flip-flops to wear as you walk among the relaxation stations.
You don a plastic wristband that opens your locker and doff everything else.
In each room, you’ll see a sign that tells you how long you’re supposed to spend for maximum benefit. The recommended time for the whole circuit is three hours. Because the clock was far away and my eyesight is near, I should have brought the stopwatch I use to monitor my sauna time, which was back in our hotel room. You move from dry heat to wet heat: saunas, whirlpools, plunge pools, and something I called the “cold-as-hell frolic pool,” which is probably the closest to sea bathing I ever want to get. We did stay for the recommended time in that pool, though, splashing around to ward off hypothermia.
We did skip one of the last stations, a large room filled with what looked like massage tables, where we were supposed to stay, lying down, for 30 minutes. After a final shower, you get another tablecloth and the opportunity to lotion up (no kidding) before spending time in the reading room, where you can enjoy a hot beverage in a chaise lounge while perusing a very limited number of magazines, mainly in German. One guy (of course it was a guy!) didn’t get the memo to wear a tablecloth. Also of course, he was the one who walked back and forth several times getting successive cups of tea.
Maybe ‘Donge-Swingen’ IS for Me
Even before writing this blog, I had already compiled a short list of pithy things I wanted to say, including that I saw more bush than in a botanical garden and more dong than you’d glimpse in a handbell choir. The reality, however, was very different. Because the recommended experience takes three hours, the spa halts entry three hours before closing. We got there 30 minutes before that time and experienced the spa with fewer than two dozen other people. The nudity thing became a non-issue by the time we entered the second room (apart from that dude in the reading room).
Quick side note: Designed in Renaissance style, the Friedrichsbad opened in 1877, as part of Baden-Baden’s effort to find a new tourism avenue to replace casino gambling, which had been outlawed in the country. The bathing style replicated that developed in the 1850s by a physician in County Cork, Ireland, for health and relaxation. Dr. Richard Barter opened the first such spa in 1856 near Blarney (and no, I didn’t make that up).
We book-ended our visit to the Friedrichsbad with visits to the fabulous Caracalla Spa next door, where you can enjoy the thermal baths wearing as many swimsuits as you’d like — except for upstairs. Because Caracalla’s textile-free areas are mainly saunas, which Marilynn doesn’t particularly enjoy, we kept our bathing suits on.
To Europe ... and Back 