Leukerbad

Leukerbad sits at 1,400 m at the closed end of a side valley in the Valais, with the Gemmi wall — a rock face rising some 600 m — directly above the village. Hot water comes out of the ground here at up to 51 °C, around 3.9 million litres a day, which makes it the largest thermal resort in the Alps.

The Romans knew about it. The bishops of Sion developed it in the fifteenth century. Goethe, Mark Twain, Maupassant and James Baldwin all came — Baldwin wrote Stranger in the Village here in 1953, about being the first Black man most of the villagers had ever seen.

Leukerbad and Bad Ragaz, in the east of the country, are generally reckoned Switzerland’s two leading thermal resorts. The main difference is the setting: Bad Ragaz has nothing like Leukerbad’s mountain wall.

The baths

Two main complexes, plus hotel baths.

Leukerbad Therme is the larger, with several indoor and outdoor pools and a big sauna area.

Walliser Alpentherme is the more design-led, with a Valais sauna village and a Roman-Irish circuit.

The point of both is the same and it is a good one: sitting in hot water outdoors, in winter, with snow falling and a 600-metre cliff lit above you.

Note the sauna rules; see thermal baths.

There is also a third, plainer public bath, Volksheilbad, with shorter hours and a lower entry price than the two main resorts.

Leukerbad Therme has a water slide, which the Alpentherme does not.

At the Alpentherme, the sauna area is built as a cluster of chalet-style cabins at different temperatures, with runnels of cold water running between them.

The routine at all three baths is the same: buy a ticket, take a key, change in a cabin, lock your belongings away, and shower before getting into the water. Guests staying at a hotel attached to one of the baths can usually go straight down from their room in a bathrobe.

The Gemmi

The cable car from the village goes up the wall to the Gemmi pass at 2,350 m, and the difference at the top is startling — a bare high plateau with a lake, quite unlike the enclosed valley below.

The Gemmi path down the cliff face is the historic route: a mule track cut and blasted into the rock in the 1730s, zigzagging down the wall, and one of the more remarkable pieces of pre-modern engineering in the Alps. It is a proper mountain path, exposed in places, and takes about two hours down.

From the top, paths run north to Kandersteg over the pass — a full day’s walk between two valleys that are hours apart by road.

Skiing

Torrent, on the other side of the valley, is a modest area with long runs down to the village. Leukerbad is not a serious ski destination and does not pretend to be; the combination people come for is a morning on the snow and an afternoon in the water.

Getting there

• By train and bus — the railway reaches Leuk in the Rhône valley (Sion 20 minutes, Zurich about three hours), then a post bus climbs to the village in half an hour.
• By car — the road up is good but it is a dead end; there is no through route.
• From the airports — Geneva is the closer airport: reckon on around three hours to Leukerbad, changing at Sierre and again at Leuk onto the connecting bus. From Zurich airport the same trip takes about three and a half hours, usually with two or three changes.
• Parking — the older centre of the village restricts traffic, so drivers should check with their accommodation in advance about where to park.

Nearby

Leukerbad sits at the end of a single road, so a trip to any of the following means going back down to Leuk first.

• Sion — 40 minutes, two castle hills and the oldest playable organ in the world
• Kandersteg — over the Gemmi on foot, or a long way round by train
• Zermatt — an hour and a half down the valley and up the next one

When to go

Winter is when Leukerbad is at its best — the contrast between the cold and the water is the whole experience, and the Gemmi under snow is spectacular.

June to October for the walking and the pass. The cable car runs year-round; the historic Gemmi path is a summer route only.