Solequell

The Solequell is the bathing house of the SOLEPARK at Schönebeck/Bad Salzelmen in Saxony-Anhalt, on the edge of the Bad Salzelmen spa park, and is presented by the operator as a Gesundheits- und Erholungsbad, a health and recreation bath rather than a leisure pool: there are no slides and no wave machine, and the whole building is organised around bathing in brine, sweating and treatment. The operator calls Bad Salzelmen the oldest brine spa in Germany and dates bathing cures in the local natural brine to 1802, a claim German Wikipedia repeats, recording that the healing effect of brine was discovered there by Johann Wilhelm Tolberg and that Germany's first brine spa opened on the site in that year; the same article lists the Solequell as part of today's Solepark alongside the Lindenbad treatment house and the Kunsthof. Salt has been extracted at Elmen since the twelfth century, and the graduation works and brine tower of the former Royal Prussian saltworks still stand in the park.

The bathing area holds a large indoor pool with numerous massage jets and a current channel, a cascade pool with falling water curtains, a hot pool with bubble loungers, a whirlpool at the panoramic window, a toddler pool and a generous outdoor pool that looks into the spa park in every season. Every pool except the whirlpool, the toddler pool included, carries about 3.5 per cent natural Bad Salzelmen brine. Temperatures are published as ranges: the adventure and cascade pools and the outdoor pool at 28 to 32 °C with a depth of 1.35 metres, the hot pool at 33 to 36 °C at 1.39 metres, the whirlpool at 33 to 36 °C and the children's pool at 33 to 36 °C in 0.26 to 0.55 metres of water. The operator notes that it lowers pool temperatures on warm summer days. The brine is natural but not thermal: no source temperature, well or depth is published, and light therapy and a textile steam bath are included in the bathing ticket.

The sauna area covers 250 square metres across two buildings linked by the sauna garden, and the operator states that it holds eight saunas of differing temperatures, though it names seven: a block-plank sauna at 90 to 100 °C where infusions are given on the hour with changing scents and where the surprise and Pfänner infusions are the highlights, a brine steam bath at 43 to 46 °C under a blackthorn dome with natural brine trickling down it, a Finnish sauna at 80 °C, a herb sauna at 60 °C with essential oils, a Brechelbad at 50 °C scented with fir and strewn with fir branches, a stone bath at 50 °C and a steam bath at 50 °C. Cooling is by a cold pool, a plunge pool, a snow paradise, Kneipp foot baths, a mill-wheel shower, an ice fountain and experience showers. A separate Wohlfühlbereich adds massages, cosmetic treatments and a solarium.

The house opens from 10:00 to 21:00 on Monday to Wednesday, from 09:00 to 21:00 on Thursday and Sunday and from 09:00 to 22:00 on Friday and Saturday; the sauna keeps the same hours and is reserved for women all day on Tuesday, except in the winter holidays and on public holidays. A bathing day ticket costs 22.00 euro on weekdays and 24.00 euro at weekends and on holidays; the sauna day ticket, which includes the bath, costs 28.00 to 30.00 euro.