That One Time I Got Naked With Some Germans (A Recap From February)

My Mum will be horrified that I’m writing about this. My friends will either laugh or be shaking their heads in disbelief that this event took place as I’m a prude, and anyone that knows me well will vouch for this.

But……

Thermal Baden sessions are a huge part of the German culture here. Germans love a good spa & bathing session, they really do. Especially nudie. It really is a fascinating part of the culture. In day to day life here, Germans are so straight laced and serious. Put them in a Thermal Baden with the chance to get their kit off and they lose all their inhibition (or come to think of it, this loss of inhibition rule also applies when they are in a beer tent, clothes on).

Lucky for us, Wiesbaden (which translates as Meadow Baths) is about 25 minutes away from our place in Frankfurt. Its one of my favourite places in Germany, a beautiful, quaint, typically quintessential German town which is one of the oldest spa towns in Europe. At one time or another, there was 26 hot springs located around the town, however these days only 14 of them still flow.

Because of Chris’ continual travel with work, I thought it would be a nice thing for us to go and experience the Kaiser-Friedrich Therme (Irish-Roman Bath). I’d done my research online, and the Therme looked incredible. Architecture which made you feel like you had been transported to Ancient Rome, information on massages available, talk of relaxation and wellbeing - if we were going to visit, this was going to be the place. Whilst I was fully aware that the sauna part of the experience was full nudie, I had mentally prepared for this and thought I’d covered all bases. Yep, fully understand the nudity part for the sauna, I’ll hire a towel and wear that and any bathing will be done in the comfort of my bikini’s. Sorted.

So we moseyed our way over to Wiesbaden mid-afternoon. We decided to make an afternoon of it, and stopped for lunch in town before making our way over to the Therme. As we approached reception and asked for our wristbands, we were promptly made aware that this was a full nude therme. No bathers for the bathing part of the afternoon. Gulp. We looked at each other and we were both mentally thinking, we’ve driven all the way here…..so we shrugged our shoulders…when in Rome, right?

So off we went, and so did our clothes. Once we were changed into our towels we headed out into the main part of the spa. And yep, there they were. Nude Germans. Lots of them. All ages (yes, some seriously old folk here), all different body types and sizes. In the words of Elaine from Seinfeld, everyone was “naked, naked, naked”. I got my invisible blinkers on and headed straight for the 39 deg thermal bath. We had a bit of a routine going on where I would get as close as humanly possible to the pool steps and pass Chris my towel and then get in and the same on the way out. To be completely honest, it was actually more enjoyable than I had expected and I think the key is going with your partner (which a lot of people seemed to be doing) and the fact that you don’t know another soul there. And contrary to what you may think, no one actually looks at each other. And I think because you’re all in the same boat, it eerily seems some what normal (ok, its still not ever going to be completely normal to me here, don't get any ideas about us joining a nudist colony). 

From there my initial plan of wearing the towel in the sauna came into effect. We went into the cooler sauna of the two, then experienced an ice cold bath and a Finnish sauna which sits at temps of 85-90 deg (it was so hot I could only stand about 5 minutes).

We finished off in a lovely warm room where you could recline on sun lounges; yes, nudity continued into that room too (not us though, towels firmly in place). Upon leaving, I honestly felt so relaxed and my skin felt lovely and soft. Whilst we’re not going to be making a habit of going every week, and I’d prefer to find out if the ability to wear a bikini in another bath locally does exist, I think the hardest part is over - getting yourself in there!

And friends visiting sometime soon? Happy to point you in the direction of the Therme, but the friendship stops there! :)

We visited Kaiser Friedrich Therme. Click here for more info.