Grand Resort Bad Ragaz - Historical Thermal Spa Complex in Eastern Switzerland

The Grand Resort Bad Ragaz is located in the Heidiland holiday region of eastern Switzerland, about an hour's drive from Zurich. It is surrounded by mountains and is renowned as Europe's leading wellness and medical health resort.

The resort was founded in 1242 after a naturally warm (36.5 °C) thermal spring was discovered in Bad Ragaz. The monks of the nearby Benedictine monastery realized that the water had healing properties and could treat circulatory diseases, rheumatism, and paralysis.

The thermal water was first piped into the town from the Tamina Gorge nearly 200 years ago, giving the Grand Resort Bad Ragaz its uniqueness. But that alone would not have been enough to make it Europe's best wellbeing and medical health resort.

Far-sighted investments are behind the success and the dozens of awards the resort wins yearly. These include Multiple Michelin-starred restaurants led by some of the best chefs in Europe and an ever-expanding thermal spa with innovations like the Kelo-wood sauna (made of centuries-old trees with a unique scent).

The Grand Resort Bad Ragaz was built in 1868 and was created based on a centuries-old bathing and healing tradition, resulting in a unique combination of its own thermal spring and the amenities of a five-star luxury resort.

The Grand Resort consists of the four-star Palais, which can be booked separately, two luxury hotels: the Grand Hotel Hof Ragaz and the Quellenhof Bad Ragaz, and the world-famous Tamina Therme thermal spa.

In addition to the top spa and the most luxurious private clinic in Switzerland (completely separate from the hotel operations), the hotel's best parts include the impressive Presidential Suite in the Spa Tower, which deserves the world-class label.

But it's not just in the top suites and lofts, which are located in the modern, minimalist spa suite building, Quellenhof (inclusive of a private spa area), where you feel like royalty.

All 267 rooms and suites in the five-star hotels "Grand Hotel Quellenhof & Spa Suites" and "Grand Hotel Hof Ragaz" that belong to the Grand Resort, as well as in the Palais Bad Ragaz, are luxuriously and extremely tastefully furnished in various styles.

Seven restaurants, three bars, a bistro, a café, and a sushi takeaway offer culinary diversity. The resort has three Michelin-star restaurants: verve by sven (one star), Memories (three stars and one green star), and IGNIV by Andreas Caminada (two stars), which will make every gourmet's heart beat faster.

The other restaurants are:

Namun (Japanese cuisine) Olives d'Or (Italian cuisine) Zollstuer (local cuisine) Gladys (a clubhouse classic at the golf club)

You can choose between different breakfast options. Olives d'Or offers a full buffet every day. Alternatively, Verve by Sven offers an à la carte breakfast from Thursday to Monday.

The recently renovated, historic Helenabad has an indoor sports pool with comfortable loungers, a sauna area, and an outdoor pool.

Tamina Therme

The Tamina Therme is a historic spa treatment and wellness center. Built in 1866, it became the first indoor thermal water swimming pool in Europe in 1872.

After the spa closed on 2 March 2008, it was demolished and rebuilt from scratch, reopening as the new Tamina Therme on 12 June 2009.

The spa covers an area of 7,300 m2 and, in 2015, added a sauna area along with beauty treatments and massages.

The facilities include two indoor pools, one outdoor pool, a slide, a waterfall, a grotto, and several hydromassage pools, all supplied with 36.5°C thermal water from the Tamina Gorge.

This thermal spring has been known since the Middle Ages and was discovered in 1242. Since 1840, the thermal water has flowed through a four-kilometer-long pipeline directly to Bad Ragaz.

The sauna area is referred to as the "village" because it's so huge. It has all the familiar sauna types (9 in total!), plus one that features an extravagant Swarovski crystal herbal steam bath.

You can spend the whole day trying out all the saunas:

• Finnish sauna • Turkish spa • Textile sauna (in all the other saunas, you have to be naked, but you can cover yourself with a towel) • Sanarium (a type of low-temperature Finnish sauna) • Bio sauna • Infrared sauna • Kelo-infusion sauna • Sauna Nera ritual sauna • Latvian Pirts sauna

Those of you who enjoy staying active can enjoy hiking, Nordic walking, biking, horse riding, or adventure trekking in the beautiful holiday region of Heidiland. You can also play golf at the hotel's two 18—and 9-hole courses.