The featured photo is of a public Kneipp station in Bad Wörishofen, where anyone can take to the waters for free…

Bill and I just got home from our latest long weekend, which we decided to take after finally getting in to see our Stuttgart area dentist. Originally, we were both scheduled to have cleanings done, but two hygienists were out sick, so they could only do one of us. When Bill got an email from Dr. Blair’s office advising him of the issue, he told them I would take the appointment. He already has a dentist in Wiesbaden, thanks to the tooth fracture he suffered last year and the need for an implant.

This time, we spent our time in a spa town called Bad Wörishofen, in Bavaria. I had never heard of the place before a few weeks ago, but apparently it is very popular among older Germans, as it’s where the Kneippen treatment method was invented by Sebastian Kneipp in 1890. I have no particular love for the Kneippen method, although I had heard of it before we decided to visit Bad Wörishofen. The number one reason we went to this sleepy spa town was because I was looking for a nice place to spend the weekend that wasn’t too far from Stuttgart.

Last weekend, we changed the clocks here in Germany. It now gets dark at about 5:30 PM or so. My dental appointment was at 2:00, but we couldn’t get on the road to our destination until about 3:30. I know how tired Bill gets as it gets dark, so I decided to look for a place that wouldn’t require sitting in traffic for too long… or be too challenging to get to from downtown Stuttgart.

Originally, I had considered cities like Ulm, Schwabisch Hall, and Augsburg, and places down near Lake Constance. But, for some reason, I couldn’t find a place that really called to me. I like spa towns, though, and Bad Wörishofen looked like it had a lot of nice hotels. So we decided to book three nights at the five star Hotel Fontenay. This hotel is also known as “le petit château.” The place got good reviews and the photos made it look promising, so I booked it through Expedia.com. It was definitely not cheap; I think it was about $365 a night. Now that I’ve stayed there, I think it’s a bit overpriced. But I’ll get to that in a future post.

Overall, we did have a good time in Bad Wörishofen. It is a good place to get some fresh air, eat good food, and enjoy some peace and quiet. There’s also a lot to do in the area, if you are inclined to venture out. Augsburg is not too far, nor is Lake Constance, or Füssen, which is close to where the famous Neuschwanstein Castle is. On separate trips, Bill and I have already been to Mad King Ludwig’s famous unfinished castle, which inspires the Disney castles. It is a beautiful place, but we both felt like it is the kind of attraction that one only needs to see once. I wouldn’t turn down a return visit to Neuschwanstein Castle, but I also wouldn’t go out of my way to go there. On the other hand, maybe it would be fun to go there with Bill. He went in the 80s, and I went in 2008.

Of course, if you want to stay in town, you can do that, too. There is a big Therme there— a huge indoor water spa. Most days, the main parts of the Therme are only open to people over age 16. Saturdays are family days. I thought we might visit there, but we decided to just use the hotel’s spa facilities. I now wish we had visited the Therme on Friday, but we had beautiful weather on Friday that I wanted to enjoy, and it was also All Saints Day, which is a holiday. The spa was open, but I wanted to be outside. Maybe we’ll get an opportunity to go there, if we have a chance to visit again.

There’s also the Allgäu Skyline Park, an amusement park near the town of Bad Wörishofen. You can also visit the Sebastian Kneipp museum, visit churches, shop, or take in spa treatments at any of the many places that offer them. We probably should have arranged to do that ourselves.

As it was, we had a fairly quiet, restful, somewhat boring weekend. I took some photos and we wandered around this previously unfamiliar sleepy spa town where Americans seem to fear to tread. 😉 I’m glad we visited Bad Wörishofen, although I can think of other towns I found more interesting.

This series should be fairly short, so I hope a few folks will come along with me on this trip to the Allgäu, where the Kneipp spa treatment method came to be.