The Moorbad Wimsbach-Neydharting

A health resort with history

The Wimsbach-Neydharting moor spa is one of the oldest moor spas in the world, and one of the few, still remaining opening to the public. The moor spa was mentioned as early as 1050. It first appears in documents from Lambach Abbey in 1364 and was owned by the Habsburg Emperor Rudolf I as early as 1264.

Wimsbach was not spared during the Peasants' Wars from 1525 to 1632. In 1646, the castle of Baron Jakob von Aspan, as well as the market, were completely destroyed in a catastrophic fire. The baroque residential castle, which has been preserved to this day, was built on the remains of the burnt-down castle.

At the beginning of the 16th century, Theophrastus Paracelsus, a Swiss doctor and philosopher who found his quintessence in the Neydharting moor, was one of the spa guests.

In Aristotle's view of the world, ether existed as a massless, unchanging, eternal substance beyond the sphere of the moon. This fifth element therefore had completely different properties to the earthly four elements of fire, water, earth and air. The quinta essentia was therefore primarily understood to be an elixir-like substance that brought about health and longevity.

Among the many prominent guests of Bad Wimsbach-Neydharting in 1621 was the imperial court mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler, who worked on his famous work Harmonices Mundi in the castle, shortly after his mother had been persecuted and accused of being a witch in 1620.

The Villa Anna spa house was built around 1750 and the Stone Baths were built in 1810. After 1834, the Neydharting mud baths benefited from the Budweis-Linz-Gmunden horse-drawn railway due to their location.

The municipal coat of arms, which was awarded in 1982, also refers to the moor baths with the bathing sheep and the black druid's foot on it, a five-pointed star or pentagram. Pythagoras recognised the pentagram as a symbol of health. It also symbolises the cycle of life.

In addition to the moor bath, there is also a so-called Villa rustica. The Roman villa in Bad Wimsbach-Neydharting was commonly regarded as a villa rustica, which is fundamentally wrong. The investigations showed that the building was a Roman farmstead. Today, only the remains of the walls of the Roman farmstead can be seen. It was built around 160 AD and the farmstead was abandoned during the Germanic invasions in the 4th century.

It was a seven-room building, although the foundation walls of four rooms are still clearly recognisable today. The Romans certainly didn't do without the familiar home comforts, as evidenced by the underfloor heating, where smoke was channelled through the entire house. Lead pipes channelled the water into the kitchen.

Today, the Villa Rustica is easily accessible by bike along the Roman cycle path and on foot.