Kneipp helps to achieve inner balance and calm. With mindfulness, mud, exercise, healthy food, herbs – and lots of cold water. We’re going to took a look around Bad Wörishofen
Kneipp in Bad Wörishofen
People are laughing, messing around, and up to their knees in mud. They shimmy through the basin to the washing station. There, they scrub the mud off their skin with a brush before moving on to the water walking area of the barefoot path. This runs through the 16-hectare spa park in Bad Wörishofen, the town where pastor Sebastian Kneipp developed his therapy. And Bad Wörishofen is still known today for its Kneipp treatments.
Like the original Kneipp settings, the therapy has hardly changed. The recipe for success is still: water, herbs, balance, exercise and nutrition. On these five pillars, this Kneipp town offers its guests everything they need to relax.
Treading Water, Arm Baths, Casts
Many hotels offer Kneipp therapies in Bad Wörishofen. They bolster the human condition and stimulate the self-healing powers. At the centre of the Kneipp cure are water treading exercises, arm baths, ablutions, water flows and massages
Guests receive the first applications early in the morning while they are still in bed. For example, a small hay sack heated overnight helps with neck and backache.
Water, herbs, balance, exercise and nutrition: Bad Wörishofen perfectly covers the five pillars of the Kneipp cure, including through its numerous herb gardens and herbal hiking trails.
What grows as wild herbs in the Allgäu meadows was already appreciated by Kneipp as far back as the 19th century. Kneipp later included healing herbs for compresses or as bath additives in his therapy. And this is still happening in Bad Wörishofen today.
In addition to the herb gardens in the spa gardens, the town regularly offers “herb walks” through the countryside. You can learn more about the healing power of herbs: aniseed relieves cramps, lemon balm promotes sleep, rosemary and hawthorn get circulation going.
Kneipp in an Urban Setting
There are 22 water treading pools and arm baths for Kneipp in Bad Wörishofen. A nature reserve on the Wörthbach near the “Erlöserkirche” (Church of the Redeemer) is particularly beautiful. There, a railing was constructed that leads right into the stream, thereby allowing you to enjoy Kneipp in the middle of nature. Four kilometres away in the district of Dorschhausen is the “cold spring” with ice-cold water.
Scents for Inner Balance
Guests find inner peace in the spa park of this Kneipp town. Divided into different themed gardens, it never fails to fascinate visitors time and again. There are herb gardens, a fragrance garden and the rose garden in the spa park with 500 different rose varieties and 6,000 rose bushes.
Many nature enthusiasts are drawn out into the surroundings of Bad Wörishofen, for example, on the ten-kilometre-long forest hiking trail. Various stations help the guests there to reflect. Those looking for a more sporty form of exercise can explore the region by bicycle. After an extensive tour, guests relax in one of the pubs or cafés before returning to the hotel by spa bus. The next Kneipp treatment is waiting for them there.
Whether guests want to strengthen themselves or alleviate their ailments, in this Kneipp town, they come a great deal closer to their goal. What Sebastian Kneipp successfully developed more than 150 years ago is still the order of the day in Bad Wörishofen.
