Spa & Familien Resort RupertusTherme

The RupertusTherme is a brine bath in Bad Reichenhall in the Berchtesgadener Land district of Upper Bavaria, marketed as the Spa & Familien Resort RupertusTherme. The complex has two entrances: the therme at Friedrich-Ebert-Allee 21 and the family bath at Paepkestraße. It is named after Saint Rupert of Salzburg, patron of salt mining, and its water is not a hot spring but Alpine brine piped directly from the town's saline works into the bath. The operator states that the Reichenhall brine is raised from 450 metres depth and gives its temperature at source as 16 °C, with sodium at 116 g/l and chloride at 178 g/l and a total salt content of about 25 per cent; the brine is therefore heated for bathing.

The Thermenlandschaft spreads over three storeys plus an outdoor area, with water at 33 to 36 °C in active and reclining pools and steam baths. Its distinguishing feature is the underground Solegrotte, entered by descending as into a mine, where a floating pool holds a 12 per cent salt concentration. A light-filled gallery level carries a whirlpool with views of the surrounding mountains. The thermal landscape covers 707 square metres of water surface within a complex of about 18,900 square metres, with 1,580 square metres of water in total.

The sauna area, styled the Quelle des Feuers, is arranged indoors and outdoors around the theme of salt. The operator lists Finnish saunas, a wood-fired earth sauna, a salt gallery sauna and a Laist brine steam bath with salt infusion ceremonies and applications of Laist, a natural mineral brine mud from the Berchtesgaden salt mine; the outdoor section adds a warm-water pool, a natural pond and wooden sun decks. In all there are eight saunas and steam baths, distributed over two floors at temperatures between 40 and 90 °C. A wellness centre, a fitness centre with a 75-square-metre brine therapy pool and the family bath complete the resort.

The building was erected in 2005 to designs by Rudolf Wienands. After the 2006 collapse of the Bad Reichenhall ice rink and swimming hall, the replacement sports pool was attached to the therme rather than rebuilt on its old site, and the resulting Sport- und Familienbad opened in 2011 with its own entrance. It contains a family pool 1.10 metres deep with a current channel, a twelve-metre wide slide and a 120-metre tube slide, a teaching pool, a toddler area with depths up to 40 centimetres, and a competition-standard 25-by-15-metre pool with six lanes. The therme and sauna open daily from 10:00 to 22:00; the family bath opens Monday to Friday from 14:00 to 21:00 and at weekends, on public holidays and during Bavarian school holidays from 10:00 to 19:00. All areas close once a year for an overhaul.