Gurnigel bath
The Gurnigelbad (elevation 1155 m above sea level) in the municipality of Riggisberg was one of the largest and most famous spa hotels in Switzerland in the second half of the 19th and first half of the 20th century. The water of three springs with a high sulfur and iron content was considered healing and was partly drunk and partly bathed in it. The first hotel building burned down in 1902, the second hotel building that was built was demolished in 1946.
The three sources
The sulfur-containing Stockbrünneli spring on the Gurnigel is first mentioned in 1561. However, due to Roman coin finds (1770) and the presence of artificial tunnels, it is assumed that the sources were already known in ancient times. In addition to sulfur , the water at the Stockbrünneli also contains carbon dioxide , carbonate of lime , magnesium and sodium chloride . At the source the water was light and colorless, but quickly became cloudy when exposed to the air. When filled in bottles, the strong odor remained for months. This spring was popularly known as Stinkbrünneli .
In 1728 another spring was discovered not far from the first, the Schwarzbrünneli . The water from this spring could turn pieces of silver completely black in a short time, hence the name. It tasted salty, was clear in the frame and formed a gray-white membrane on contact with air. The spring was considered to be one of the strongest sulfur springs in Switzerland.
In 1862 a spring was found again and christened iron source according to its high iron content . In addition to iron , the water contained lime , calcium chloride , magnesium chloride and free carbon dioxide . The water was clear and tasted slightly inky.
Water analyzes were carried out several times, especially in the first half of the 19th century, and discussed by spa doctors in numerous publications with reference to the healing power of water. In retrospect, however, it can be determined that it was probably not primarily the water, but rather the increased exercise in the clean mountain air and the social gathering far away from everyday business life that was beneficial to the well-being of the spa guests.
The beginning of the spa business until 1861
Ownership and facilities
In 1591, thirty years after the first spring was discovered, the von Wattenwyl zu Burgistein family received the right to clear the forest for a first bath house. For the years 1685 and 1699 new buildings and conversions of the accommodations by Bernhard von Wattenwyl are documented. After his death in 1717, the bath came into the possession of his son-in-law Georg Thormann, who in turn sold it to his son-in-law Gottfried von Graffenried a few years later. He had the accommodation rebuilt several times, for example in 1727 and 1740. The most famous guest of that time is probably Albrecht von Haller , who stayed in the Gurnigelbad in 1731. Even then, the pool was not located by the springs themselves, but around two kilometers north of them on a natural terrace.
In 1770 the property came to David Albrecht Zehender and subsequently to his son Albrecht Niklaus Zehender. The Zehender family had the business run by an innkeeper. One of the guests in 1799 was, for example, the pedagogue Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi . In 1824 another building with 25 rooms was added, so that a total of 70 rooms were available for spa guests.
In 1839 the Zehender family sold the Gurnigelbad to the Basel hotelier Johann Jakob Kromer, which was the first time the property came into middle-class hands. He immediately had further buildings added so that in 1842 there were around 100 rooms for around 250 guests. One of them was the pastor poet Jeremias Gotthelf in 1853 , in whose novel Uli der Knecht the Gurnigelbad also played a role.
The Gurnigelbad had its own post office since 1850.
First reports about the bathroom
The doctor Johann Jakob Wagner described the bath in 1680 in his writing Historia naturalis Helvetiae curiosa , as did the natural scientist Johann Jakob Scheuchzer in his Hydrographia helvetica in 1717 . A four-page anonymous advertising pamphlet (presumably from the pen of Gottfried von Graffenried) appeared in 1742 under the title True Description of the famous excellent and holy Gurnigel-Baad, together with the so-called Schwartz-Brünnlein in lobl, which was half an hour away and was united with the Baad. Located in Canton Bern . The spa business grew rapidly thanks to praising references such as the illustrated description of the Gurnigel-Bad in Canton Bern (1820/21).
Course of a cure
A typical regimen in the middle of the 19th century consisted of drinking one to six glasses of medicinal water before breakfast. After breakfast, according to the doctor, they bathed in precisely tempered water. Lunch was plentiful, but without salted meat, without fatty foods and without sour and savory ingredients. Initially, no desserts were allowed either. The afternoons were reserved for walks, and when the weather was bad, you could play cards or billiards. The dinner consisted of soup, vegetables and fruits.
The first grand hotel
Ownership
In 1859 the Gurnigelbad was sold to Friedrich Blumer from Glarus, who after only two years sold it to the Hauser hotelier dynasty from Wädenswil . This family owned at least eight other prestigious hotels , including the Hotel Giessbach , the Weissenburgbad , the Hotel Schweizerhof Luzern in Lucerne and Hotel Schweizerhof in Bern as well as a Grand Hotel in La Spezia .
Thanks to the energetic management and construction work of the director Johann Jakob Hauser (1828–1891), the spa business enjoyed a significant upswing. He was therefore often called the “King of the Gurnigelbad” and even elected to the National Council.
Facilities
In the 1860s, Hauser combined the existing buildings, some of which he had expanded significantly in the winter months, to create a hotel wing 150 meters long, which had 196 rooms with around 300 beds. On the ground floor there were 30 bathing cabinets, the spa doctor's rooms, the post office (since 1865 also with telegraph), a café, a billiard room and a music room. A steam-heated glass gallery along the entire wing was built in 1880/81. In an outbuilding (1865/66) there was a bowling alley and a crossbow shooting range (16 rooms above). In 1880/81, Hauser had a two-storey building built parallel to the main wing, which houses the first and second class dining rooms (each with space for 250 people), the kitchen, a bakery, a patisserie, a coffee roastery and the storage rooms with a wine cellar, as well as a further 55 guest rooms on the upper floor included. The so-called old dependance (1864) with 12 rooms, a chalet (1872/73) with 39 rooms and a forest house (1876/77) with 22 rooms also offered accommodation . Hauser bought another chalet-style building at the World Exhibition in Vienna in 1873 and had it rebuilt as a chapel not far from the hotel in 1875. The Roman Catholic chapel was set up in the basement, the Reformed chapel on the ground floor and a family apartment with 9 rooms on the upper floor. In the so-called new dependance (1876/77) there was a steam-powered laundry, a smoothing shop, a butcher's shop and a forge, and 13 rooms above. The spa orchestra played with up to 18 musicians in a music pavilion on the hotel terrace.
One of the most important buildings was the pump room, built in 1871 south of the hotel. This offered protection to the so-called Gesundbrunnen , from which the healing water gushed from the three springs and transported via pipes. From there, a total of forty kilometers of walking paths led through the 360 hectares of pre-alpine parkland and forests (mostly owned by the Canton of Bern). About half an hour's walk east of the hotel, a small restaurant with an observation tower was built in Seftigschwand in the 1880s and called Bellevue because from there one could enjoy a wide view over Lake Thun to the Bernese Oberland . One path also led to the Ober-Gurnigel ( 1548 m above sea level ), which was very popular as a lookout point.
Expansion of access roads and electrification
The guests, including members of the nobility , now came from all over Europe, even from overseas. The journey took place with the horse-drawn vehicle from Bern on a road that Hauser initiated from 1873 to 1881. Via Toffen , Kirchenthurnen (horse changing station) and Riggisberg , the journey took a total of five hours. During the summer season from May to September there were two postal connections a day on this route. Hauser was also one of the initiators of the railway line through the Gürbetal , but he did not live to see the opening in 1901. In 1891 a cable car was even planned from Wattenwil to the Gurnigelbad. However, the project was not implemented.
For the Gurnigelbad special power lines were built through the forest, because electric lighting, at that time by no means widespread in private households, was of course indispensable for one of the leading hotels in Switzerland.
" It was a cotton merchant in Gurnigel" , so begins one of the chapters in Gotthelf 's delicious "Uli the Knecht" . Much has changed here since those cotton merchants. In any case, the said cotton merchant did not have dinner in the splendid hall made of white paneling with electric lighting. In fact, the comfort of the house is great, without causing an uncomfortable stiffness. Anyone who wants to do a fine toilet just does it, and if he is a “she”, “he” makes others happy. But if you carry your equipment around on your back for five weeks like a snail that carries your house, you simply walk along without feeling depressed. The secret of the great attraction of this seaside resort lies partly in this happy combination of pleasant luxury and informality. "
fire
This first grand hotel, which offered work to 150 employees from the surrounding villages and had been owned by a stock corporation since 1892, was completely destroyed by fire on the night of April 30th to May 1st, 1902.
The second grand hotel
Structure and flowering period
The corporation invested two million francs and opened the new Grand Hotel on June 15, 1905. This was now built entirely of stone and the main wing, 240 meters long, was divided by five firewalls. It housed 266 rooms with 400 guest beds and a further 121 beds in 45 rooms for the staff who traveled with them. The house was state-of-the-art: there were two lifts, central heating as well as baths and showers for the cure, inhalation rooms, hydro and electrotherapy rooms, electric light baths, etc. In the two elegant dining rooms 600 people could be entertained at the same time. Two tennis courts were also laid out in front of the hotel.
The years immediately before the First World War were considered to be the first heyday of the Gurnigelbad, which at that time offered work for around 170 people. The Orient-Express led from 1913 direct car with the caption Calais - Gurnigel ; the nearest train station was Thurnen (in operation since 1901). Another attraction was the Gurnigel hill climb , which was held from 1910 (until 1931). From 1921, at the request of British guests, winter operations were introduced. The road was also extended over the so-called Wasserscheidi to the Schwefelbergbad .
Crisis, second heyday, end
In the Great Depression , it took the Gurnigelbad downhill; In 1931 bankruptcy was filed. The new owner, Fritz Pulver from Bern, was able to renovate the business and lead it into its second bloom. The absolute top year in the history of the spa was 1938 with around 25,700 overnight stays by visitors from 20 nations. As a result of the outbreak of the Second World War, there were no foreign visitors. The health resort was closed in 1942 due to lack of demand and the inventory was sold.
As a result, the authorities quartered refugees several times in the vacant hotel, one after the other, 200 Italian professors, 2000 Italian partisans , 1000 German military personnel and 2000 interned Russians. Afterwards, the buildings were in such bad shape that resuming hotel operations would have required disproportionately high investments . The whole complex, with the exception of the chalet and the new branch, was therefore blown up by the army from 1946 to the end of 1955 - most recently by air raids.
Current situation
The new owner of the site, the Swiss Army , had the two remaining buildings (chalet and new branch) converted into troop accommodation. The public restaurant "Ochsen", which was set up in the Grand Hotel at the time, was continued, but the post office was closed in 1953.
Tourism slowly picked up again in the late 1950s. In connection with the old days, the restaurant was called "Gurnigelbad" again. The Gurnigel hill climb has been held again since 1968 . The Dixieland OpenAir, called Badgarten Dixie, took place for the first time in 2003, and for the last time in 2012. Every two years the Beo Bike Week, an international motorcycle meeting, takes place on the grounds of the Gurnigelbad.
After the army ceased to occupy the hotel to the same extent at the end of the 1980s, the property changed hands on August 1, 2005: The Quarti family, who had previously leased the business for 18 years, took over the entire hotel property with all outbuildings, water supply, sewage treatment plant and a lot of agricultural land. The Hotel-Restaurant Gurnigelbad and the attached tourist camp in the same building are open all year round.
The financial situation forced Quartis to sell the Gurnigelbad. However, Quartis were no longer employed as operations managers. Since the beginning of July 2012, a long time for the Quarti family as tenants, owners and then as operations manager came to an end.
There are no longer any spa treatments. However, sulfur water still flows from a small well in the park of the Gurnigelbad.
literature
- Christian Raaflaub: Gurnigelbad, the city in the woods . WeberVerlag.ch 332 pages, 380 illustrations. ISBN 978-3-03818-186-6 . Review in: Der Bund, October 24, 2018
- Markus Krebser: Lake Thun on the left with Kandertal, Niedersimmental and via Thun to Gurnigelbad: on the way in the past . Thun: Krebser, 1996. pp. 210-233. ISBN 3-85777-135-6
- Hans Lötscher: Swiss travel and health resort almanac: the health resorts and healing springs in Switzerland . 14th ed. Zurich: Schröter, 1907. pp. 114–117.
- Ne .: The Gurnigelbad - Gesundbrunnen for farmers and burgers: highlights from its past . In: Historischer Kalender, or, Der Hinkende Bot on the leap year 1980 , 253 (1979) pp. 66–78. [Article only signed with abbreviation; the full name of the author could not be determined].
- Ed [ouard] Verdat: Gurnigel (Canton Bern, Switzerland): facilities, climate, mineral springs, healing results: concise notes for general practitioners . Bern: Rieder & Simmen, 1876.
- Eduard Guyer: The hotel industry of the present . 2nd ed. Zurich: Orell Füssli & Co., 1885. pp. 61–64.
- Henry Weber, Otto Henne am Rhyn: New complete local dictionary of Switzerland . 2nd ed. St. Gallen: Kreutzmann, 1886. pp. 263–264.
Web links
- Website of the Gurnigelbad
- Brief information on the Gurnigelbad in the article 'Rüti bei Riggisberg' , by Anne-Marie Dubler in the Historical Lexicon of Switzerland
- Swisstopo, time travel through maps from 1860 to today. The locations of the three springs and the Bellevue are shown on the old maps .
Individual evidence
- ↑ From: Walks in the Alps. Walking studies and chats (Frauenfeld 1885), Chapter 3.
- ↑ The last days of a grand hotel. In: Die Berner Woche , Vol. 33, 1943, p. 989
Coordinates: 46 ° 45 ′ 41 " N , 7 ° 26 ′ 36" E ; CH1903: 600359 / one hundred and seventy-eight thousand nine hundred and twelve