The spa town of Bad Reichenhall lies in the Saalach Valley, nestled between the foothills of the Berchtesgaden and Chiemgau Alps. It looks back on four thousand years of settlement history, closely linked to the extraction of salt from brine. The town has been known as a spa and holiday resort since the mid-19th century. It has borne the title ‘Bad’ in its name since 1890, and in 1899 it was awarded the title of Royal Bavarian State Spa.
We stayed there on the Austrian Way of St James and explored the town at length. We were particularly impressed by the Gradierhaus and St Zeno’s Abbey.
The AlpenSole-Gradierhaus
The 160-metre-long building contains around 100,000 bundles of blackthorn, onto which some 400,000 litres of Alpine brine trickle down daily from a height of 13 metres. If you walk along the leeward side for about 30 minutes a day and breathe in the fresh Alpine brine, it has been proven to speed up the cleansing of the upper respiratory tract and help you relax.

