The Day I Swam Completely Nude Because That’s What Germans Do.

I wasn’t the only naked one.

Unlike Dan Carlson | Meandering Naturists, I don’t specifically go looking for naked spas or hot springs. But if it’s the rule that nakedness is mandatory for entry, I’ll strip off.

Especially if I’m in a foreign country and no one knows me. But my travelling companion refused to take anything off so was denied entry. He paid the price! No, not the price of entry. The price of not going with the flow and doing what the Romans do in Rome or in this case doing what the Germans do in Germany to be more precise at the Kaiser-Friedrich Therme in Wiesbaden.

I just love hot spas, hot springs and thermes. My daughter and I went on an entire five-week trip around Europe trying out as many of the spas as were listed on Lonely Planet’s top twenty.

Here is the article that inspired us!

Keeley and I drove 5000 kilometres in 5 weeks and visited six thermes. It seemed like more. We had planned to visit Kaiser-Friedrich Therme in Wiesbaden first but then decided we’d tack it on to the end of the trip but ran out of time. We needed to be back in Paris — Keeley to catch her flight back to Australia and me to catch my flight to Turkey and one more hot spa! Oh, I’m not counting the one in the basement of the hotel in Istanbul.

Here’s that story.

After the Thermae Bath Spa, Britain’s only thermal spring, we planned to visit the Kaiser-Friedrich therme in Wiesbaden. I wanted to stay in one of France’s prettiest villages Mittelbergheim and do a day trip to the therme. I accidentally booked Marckolsheim — not a pretty village — but you can understand my mistake. Keeley couldn’t! Years later I made a similar mistake with Wurzburg and Weinsberg. Anyway, I digress.

A year later, I did get to see Mittelbergheim and it was beautiful. It actually started snowing while we were having lunch. That night we camped in Landau in a shopping centre carpark with a McDonalds (free wifi).

On a whim, I searched for Kaiser Friedrich Therme and found it was only an hour and a half’s drive north. I could do with a day relaxing in a hot spa! Four and a half weeks in a campervan were taking their toll.

I had imagined it was out in the country like so many of the thermes Keeley and I had visited on our last trip, but no, it was right smack in the middle of quite a big town called Wiesbaden.

By a stroke of good luck, we found a spot in a centre street parking where the van not only fit perfectly, but it was free to park on the weekends! We asked the lady at the bookshop for directions to the Kaiser-Friedrich Therme, walked down the hill to a very long pedestrian street and eventually found the entrance.

On approaching the desk, I saw a sign that clearly said (in pictures) no clothes, but I had walked so far and had so much trouble actually finding a place to park, I thought, “What the hell, I’m here now, I’m just going to do it!” My travelling companion was not so convinced. He decided he’d walk back to the camper and bring me my boots and jacket so I’d be warm when I finished in the spa.

I chose a locker, loaded all my gear in it except my towel, and headed for the showers. Well, actually I walked round and round looking for the showers, feeling very self-conscious that I didn’t have any thongs on. I had left them in the van. Everyone was wearing footwear of some description, but nothing else!

I hung my towel on the closest hook to the first pool and stepped in. The water was comfortingly warm (36–37C) and I stayed submerged much longer than the recommended 10 minutes. If I wanted to soak in the hotter pool, I would have to climb out of this pool and walk a few metres, starkers, to enjoy the 38–39C water of the second pool.

It was a little daunting, but everyone else, old and young, was doing it without a second thought, and no one was looking at anyone else anyway. Once in the hotter pool, I picked a great spot under the waterfall (for my shoulders) and with a strong massage jet on my back and really started to relax.

Suitably cooked, I climbed out, quickly wrapped my towel around me as best I could, and went searching for the loo, but came across the most delicious smell of hot bread baking. The hot water had stimulated my hunger so I asked where the aroma was coming from. “Bread baking,” was the short reply, so I asked if could I have some, and a pretzel was presented to me on a plate with butter and enough cream cheese for 10 pretzels. Well, I’ve never been fond of pretzels; too salty for me, but this one was just perfect. I won’t judge pretzels so harshly in the future!

There was a single girl sitting at a table drinking a beer, and since I didn’t have a clue which beer to choose, I said, “I’ll have what she’s having.” She heard me speaking English, and we started chatting about anything and everything. When joined by her friend, they both moved over to my table and we all chatted lots more. Both were very lovely American girls, who had just popped into the therme on a whim, after dropping their husbands off to Frankfurt airport to return to duty.

Consequently, neither of them had suitable footwear either. I did not feel quite so out of place. After another soak, I had to shower and wash my hair before getting dressed. Very strangely, there were individual, very private and comfy dressing cubicles. Getting undressed did not seem to present a problem to them — Germans must be shy about getting clothes on!

My travelling companion was waiting for me with boots and jacket, which were much needed once I came outside. It was now dark and very cold. We hurried back to the camper in light rain, and made our way to our camping spot for the night with only one error from the GPS, trying to tell us the stellplatz was on the right-hand side of the road when it was clearly marked on the left! The right-hand side just disappeared over the edge of the mountain in darkness!

So, what was the price he paid for not coming into the therme with me?

Well, he missed out on meeting two lovely American girls but more than that, he was so upset at me going naked in front of other people that he walked into a solid glass door, almost concussing himself. He developed a massive headache that lasted all the way back to England.

When in Germany, do as the Germans do. Did anyone recoil at seeing my naked body? A little disappointingly, no one even looked.

Dan Carlson | Meandering Naturists recommends 6 other nude spas in Germany! I only knew about the Kaiser-Friedrich Therme in Wiesbaden.