Altmühltherme

The Altmühltherme is a thermal bath in Treuchtlingen, a small town on the river Altmühl in Middle Franconia, Bavaria. It is operated by the municipal utility Stadtwerke Treuchtlingen and employs about eighty people. The operator states that the bath was brought into service in 1996 after two years of construction, that its water surface exceeds 3,200 square metres, and that it is visited by roughly 400,000 guests a year. The complex combines a thermal bath, a sauna landscape, an indoor family and activity pool, an open-air pool, a salt lounge, a spa treatment department called Altmühlvital and catering, and is open all year.

The water comes from the Burgstall spring, which the operator describes as 812 metres deep and as carrying fossil water dated to an age of 18,400 years. The analysis published by the bath, carried out by the Institute for Water Chemistry and Chemical Balneology at the Technical University of Munich, classifies it as a sodium hydrogen carbonate spring with fluoride compounds and gives a total of dissolved solid minerals of 809.72 mg per litre, including 425.00 mg of hydrogen carbonate, 196.20 mg of sodium and 3.19 mg of fluoride. German Wikipedia, as a second source, puts the temperature of the deep water at 28 degrees Celsius. The operator lists chronic inflammatory and degenerative conditions of the joints and spine, soft-tissue rheumatism, recovery after operations or injuries to the locomotor system, and osteoporosis therapy among the indications.

The balneological programme published by the bath sets out the pools and their temperatures: an outdoor thermal pool at 32 degrees, an upper-floor indoor thermal pool with bubble loungers at 33 degrees, a second upper-floor indoor pool with a water bar at 34 degrees, the Altmühlvital therapy pool for patients at 34 degrees, a lower-ground indoor thermal pool at 35 degrees and a hot whirlpool at 37 degrees. Steam baths run at 45 to 50 degrees at full humidity, and a Kneipp treading basin at 12 to 16 degrees. Water gymnastics and mineral infusions are held five times a day in the lower-ground thermal pool, and the sports pool of the family and activity wing is also filled with the healing water.

The sauna landscape adjoins the thermal bath. Indoors it comprises a panorama sauna of up to 90 degrees, a bio sauna at 70 degrees and a steam bath at 50 degrees, with an ice fountain, foot basins, a reading lounge and sauna catering. Outdoors, on a large timber terrace beside the Altmühl, there is a cold plunge pool, a warm pool, a sauna cabin built into a former railcar at 80 degrees and the Altmühl sauna at 90 degrees. The thermal bath opens daily from 09:00 to 21:00 and the sauna daily from 10:00 to 21:00, with a women-only sauna on Wednesday afternoons. At the time of writing the operator notes that energy-efficiency refurbishment work is under way and may cause temporary restrictions, and that the floor bubblers, massage jets and bubble benches on the ground floor are out of service.