Römertherme Baden

Römertherme Baden stands on Brusattiplatz in Baden bei Wien, run by the municipal Badener Bäderbetriebsgesellschaft. Its signature is architectural: bathing, sauna and fitness sit together under what the operator describes as the largest free-hanging glass roof in Europe, spanning around 3,500 square metres. Beneath it the water surface itself comes to roughly 900 square metres, which makes this a mid-sized town thermal bath rather than a resort-scale water park - the emphasis falls on the water and the heat cabins rather than on slides.

The pool line-up runs from a sports pool at 26 to 28 degrees through a vital pool at 30 to 32, a children's paddling pool at 32 and a whirlpool at 36. Outdoors there are two: a clover-leaf shaped open-air pool with massage jets at 32 to 34 degrees, and the traditional Schwefelwandl, the sulphur open-air pool, at 34 to 36 degrees. Only that last basin carries the sulphurous water from Baden's healing springs; the rest of the bath is ordinary warmed water, a distinction the operator makes explicitly on its own pool page.

Baden's sulphur water - locally the yellow gold - surfaces at a natural temperature of up to 36 degrees from a depth of around 1,000 metres. The town has fifteen tapped springs; the largest and warmest, the Marienquelle, supplies the Baden cure centre, while Römertherme and the Badener Hof draw theirs from the Josefsquelle. The operator recommends it for degenerative joint and spinal conditions, restricted movement in rheumatoid arthritis outside acute flare-ups, gout, soft-tissue rheumatism, fibromyalgia, neuralgia, circulatory disorders, rehabilitation after accident and sports injuries, chronic inflammation of the urogenital tract and chronic skin conditions such as psoriasis. Sulphur baths and sulphur-mud packs are given at the adjoining cure centre rather than in the bath itself.

The sauna area costs 11 euros on top of the bath ticket and holds two classic Finnish saunas at 88 to 95 degrees, an outdoor stone-pine sauna at the same heat, a bio sauna with colour therapy at 50 to 60 degrees, three steam rooms at 42 degrees each (a Roman aroma steam bath, a eucalyptus one and a brine one), an infrared cabin at 33 degrees and a plunge pool. The bath opens daily from 10:00 to 22:00, with bathing ending at 21:30 and the last sauna infusion at 21:00; a separate fitness centre keeps longer weekday hours from 7:30.