Franken-Therme
- Location
- Bad Windsheim, Bavaria, Germany
- Water type
- sodium chloride
- Temperature
- 38 °C
- pH
- 7.3
Water profile
Soothing — neither hot nor cold, perfect balance.
Loaded with major ions — the essential minerals (Ca, Mg).
Dense, salty water — you float without effort.
The Franken-Therme's story begins in spring 1998, when a magazine article inspired Bad Windsheim's mayor to look for thermal water and revive the struggling spa town. An investment of roughly one million euros paid off: a borehole drilled to about 1,200 metres tapped a saline thermal spring, the very source still feeding the facility's pools today. The spa opened on 16 December 2005 and has since become a runaway success, drawing nearly eight million visitors instead of the 250,000 a year originally projected.
The modern complex features a striking salt lake nicknamed the "Franconian Dead Sea," with salinity reaching 26.9%. Two boreholes yield 1.5% and 4% saline solutions rich in magnesium, calcium and sulphate, sourced from an ancient sea whose underground rock salt is leached out by water and pumped back up to the surface.