Belle Époque thermal resort tumbling down a gorge — radon waters, skiing, and faded Habsburg glamour
Bad Gastein is one of the most dramatically situated spa towns in Europe — a vertical Belle Époque resort clinging to the walls of a deep Alpine gorge in Salzburg province, with a famous waterfall plunging 341 metres straight through the center of town. The thermal waters, lightly radioactive with radon, have been prescribed for rheumatism, gout, and respiratory conditions since Roman times, drawing emperors, composers, and aristrocrats for two centuries. The town's architecture is spectacular — grand 19th-century hotels built on impossibly steep slopes, connected by funicular-like streets. T…
Bad Gastein's healing waters were known to local miners, who called the valley Gastuna, from at least the 12th century. By the 15th century, Emperor Friedrich III was taking the cure here, and the town gradually attracted the European elite. The 19th-century railway connection made it accessible to Vienna's upper classes and triggered the construction of the grand hotels that define its skyline today. Emperor Franz Joseph I visited regularly; Bismarck received the 'Bad Gastein Declaration' here in 1865 regarding Austria's stance on the Schleswig-Holstein question. The radon gallery therapy —…