Alpentherme Leukerbad

Leukerbad, known in French as Loèche-les-Bains, in the canton of Valais is Europe's largest Alpine thermal spa, set at 1411 metres elevation in a dramatic glacially carved cul-de-sac valley beneath the towering limestone walls of the Gemmi Pass, where calcium and sulphate-rich spring water rises at temperatures between 28 and 51°C from deep geothermal sources in one of Switzerland's most spectacularly positioned and therapeutically significant natural thermal environments. The thermal bathing tradition at Leukerbad has been documented since the fifteenth century when Heinrich Wittenwiler described the springs, and was popularised by the visits of Erasmus in 1522 and subsequently by Goethe, de Maupassant, and Mark Twain who described the extraordinary ritual of the communal bathing in the main village pool where the entire community bathed together for hours daily discussing politics, business, and gossip in a tradition captured in nineteenth-century accounts of Swiss mountain spa life. The combination of Europe's most prolific Alpine geothermal springs, the spectacular limestone cliff backdrop of the Gemmi Pass, and direct cable car access to the Torrent skiing area creates one of the continent's most complete year-round mountain wellness destinations.