Zurich - Trip to Bad Ragaz

Bad Ragaz - By the Spa

The weather at the moment is like April – sometimes rainy, sometimes snow, sometimes sunshine, sometimes constant rain. Anyway, on Saturday it was a glorious day. When it’s sunny here, it’s amazing. Everything is so sharp and looks so clean. I think you don’t get that same sharpness in Hurghada (probably due to some latent sand being in the air).

Caterina had invited me to join her on a trip to the spa at Bad Ragaz. To my surprise, I realized that I’d never been there, even though it’s not so far away. When I used to go skiing in winter (which I gave up because I was no good at it and didn’t enjoy it), it was often the same train as to Bad Ragaz and I was always surprised how many people stayed on the train, presumably going to the spa.

My favorite philosopher (the German Idealist Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling – who has the same birthday as my friend Holger, which shows how good I am at choosing friends) is buried in Bad Ragaz. I’ve published articles on Schelling and have translated his work Clara. When I lived in Freiburg for two years, I put aside some time to make a pilgrimage to all the places Schelling used to be and this included, of course, a trip to Bad Ragaz to see his final resting place. However, that was roughly back in year 2000. How time flies. I don’t think the weather was particularly good on that day. The German Idealists also often did “cures’ at spas, but I never went into the spa at the time I searched for his grave. I think I was too intimidated and in any case I hadn’t brought any swimming gear with me.

Fast forward now to 19 years later and I’m on the train again to Bad Ragaz. This time, it was to visit the spa, which is really quite famous. The train was fairly busy, but the trip went smoothly, taking into account that, as usual, I’d not bothered to pack my mobile phone (and I forgot to pack a book as well, and my camera…). Caterina and I met by wandering up and down the train looking for each other. Caterina said she’d tried to phone me, which shows that she still needs to know me a little bit longer, since wandering aimlessly in the hope of seeing the person I’m looking for is more my style.

We walked to the spa, and conveniently Schelling’s grave (well, the cemetery) was en route. The walk was much quicker than I expected from having studied the map at the station, so it must have been quite large scale. Bad Ragaz itself was astonishingly clean, perhaps helped by the blue sky, the snow-covered mountains, and the wealthy clientele that come for their spas.

Schelling’s monument was immediately on the right as we went in and was one of only two large graves in the cemetery. It, too, looked very clean and I don’t remember it being like that, or so big, but perhaps if it was a grey day at the time, it all took on a muted appearance. On this day, Schelling's grave gleamed white in the sunshine.

We walked on and debated going into the old spa, which I assume is where Schelling would have gone. However, from the outside it looked more like a medical spa (in keeping with the German Idealists) and I was not keen to ruin what was a lovely day. So, we walked further to the Tamina spa.

It’s in a huge white building with large oval windows and is also a hotel. Caterina had to phone home to make sure her son was OK with the babysitter, so I was left to negotiate the changing rooms on my own. This was fine, although at first I could see only men and did wonder if I was in the wrong bit, but it turned out to be unisex and it had just been coincidence that all patrons were men.

I can recommend the spa; there’s also a sauna area (extra cost) and we took part in one of the spa rituals which involved coming out halfway through and rubbing salt and pine leaves over yourself and then going in for the next round afterwards. It got a bit too hot on the second round and around a dozen people left, so they opened the doors for a while. I decided to go out at that stage and the guy running it asked me if I was OK. I was the only person they asked, but I know my face goes alarmingly red when I’m in a sauna and also that I sweat a lot more easily than most people, so I probably did look a sight.

We ended up staying there the full day – we left Zurich at 1030 and returned at around 2130 – and I couldn’t believe that I’d never been to the spa before after all these years in Zurich. It just shows you that there’s always more to explore!