THEN AND NOW

How the spa town experience has changed

Etiquette

Then In the 18th and 19th centuries, European elites would typically dedicate a whole summer to “taking the cure”. In most places, mixing of the sexes in the water was highly encouraged and behaviour could be poor (imagine the characters outside Wetherspoons on a Saturday night and transpose them into a bath). Flirting, kissing, gambling and singing lewd “bathing songs” were all on the proverbial table

Now Modern-day celebs are busy people. A typical stay might be over a weekend and include some prescribed exercises at the gym, a physiotherapy session, a consultation with a nutritionist, some spa time and a massage.

“Spa culture is no longer just about swimming and drinking some water. Now we also think about your general wellbeing and time away from your phone to be in nature,” says Henning Matthiesen of Brenners Park-Hotel and Spa

Attire

Then In Elizabethan Bath, the culture was that all bathers took to the waters naked (with crowds of onlookers) – and anyone refusing to do so could be forcibly stripped.

In the more prudish 19th century, fully dressed was the norm – wigs, bonnets et al. Some women opted for sack-like robes with lead weights sewn into the hem to keep their skirts from floating up

Now You’re more likely to g Posh enough: spa towns have been given celebrity approval

see Louis Vuitton towels and Gucci swimsuits. Although on the Continent, prepare to go starkers in the saunas

Trendy treatments

Then Bracing walks and drinking/bathing in/ inhaling the sulphur water Now IV drips, chocolate massages, mild electrocution... the options are endless

Dietary tips

Then Diets back in the day were saved for the dangerously obese.

Most guests had servants bring them plates of roast meat and sugary treats while they bathed. Sweet-smelling cream cakes and spa wafers were popular for combating the fetid scent of sulphur

Now Kale smoothies, ginger-infused water and avocado and quinoa salad

Troublesome ailments

Then Infertility, eye infections, alcoholism – you name it

Now Being overweight

The bill

Then The price for a bath at the Friedrichsbad Spa, Baden-Baden, when it first opened in 1877, was 70 pfennige (about £4 in today’s money)

Now A day at the Friedrichsbad Spa costs £27