Need a break from meetings and doing deals in corporate Frankfurt? Take your soul on a trip to the historic spa town of Wiesbaden — just half an hour’s drive away from Germany’s financial hub. Here are three of Wiesbaden’s finest places to soak away the working week.
Thermalbad Aukammtal: Around $27 buys you all-day access to this spa’s indoor and outdoor saunas and pools, which are equipped with neck-spray jets, massage nozzles and water-massage recliners. For an additional fee, numerous body treatments are available, too — try the hot-chocolate massage. A beauty salon, two restaurants and a bar are also on-site. This is a modern facility and hugely popular, attracting more than 1,000 customers daily, so get in early. Leibnizstrasse 7, tel: 172 9880.
Kaiser-Friedrich-Therme: This exotic-looking venue has an exhaustive spa menu. Make your way around the steam rooms, saunas and showers and then slip into the Art Nouveau cold-water basin, brave it under an ice shower or chill out to harmonious music and mood-enhancing lights in the quiet zone of the Lumenarium. Numerous pampering treatments include oil massages, algae wraps, salt exfoliations and goat-butter conditioning. The summer admission fee is just under $5 per hour, with treatments costing extra. On weekends you’ll all but have the spa to yourself after 8 p.m., but whenever you arrive be sure to leave your modesty at the door: nude bathing is expected. Langgasse 38-40, tel: 172 9660.
Hotel Nassauer Hof: The thermal pools of this grand hotel’s Beauty Centre look across Wiesbaden’s rooftops through its fifth-floor windows. Guests are welcomed with a glass of champagne, perhaps followed by a basalt-stone massage, a water-bed exfoliating treatment or a marine-mud pack. Hotel guests have free access to the designer wellness area but nonresidents need to book a day treatment, which buys entry rights to all the facilities. A full-body massage and facial treatment form part of the day package, with prices starting at just over $230. The spa also works closely with local clinics, offering postoperative physio and medical massages. Kaiser-Friedrich-Platz 3-4, tel: 133 656.
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