Exterior of the Grand Hotel d'Europe
March 23, 1942 the parents of the Austrian filmmaker Michael Hanke , respected professional actors, were in the middle of the performance on the stage of the Grand Hotel to before a retinue of Nazi officers when she went into labor. Fritz and Beatrix they had to stand up to the Nazis, look for a car in Bad Gastein in the middle of World War II and cross this valley in the Alps to reach a suitable maternity hospital in Munich . This way of being born may explain Haneke's disturbing and disturbing films , the way of rolling it.
The episode also describes a pivotal moment for Bad Gastein . The spa town came from a few decades of splendor in which the Grand Hotel de l'Europe , one of the most avant-garde constructions of the Austro-Hungarian Empire , was its maximum exponent. East neo-renaissance colossus ten stories opened in 1909 inevitably reminiscent of Grand Budapest Hotel by Wes Anderson.
After the Anschluss (the annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany) , Bad Gastein became the new luxury spa for the elites of the Third Reich , where types like Joseph Goebbels came to exfoliate their dead skin . His Nazi comrades, while attending theatrical performances, destroyed the frescoes of degenerate art that Gustav Klimt he had painted in the hotel only a few years before.
Old reception of the Grand Hotel
The Grand Hotel, like Bad Gastein, took flight and once again became the residence of the rich and famous . In the 1980s, its new owner wanted to reinvent the city as the Monte Carlo of the Alps (sic) and placed a casino on the top floor. For its opening, it organized a New Year's Eve gala for 600 guests with a performance by Liza Minelli which is still remembered today in Austria as the woodstock of casinos.
The following year came Shirley Bassey , To the next one charles aznavour and, the next, Ray Charles and so on until the final bankruptcy in 1988. Today it remains semi-abandoned , with some rooms and the empty old basement pool , only occupied by the residents of 30 suites converted into private apartments.
Bad Gastein is the story of a failure . A vertical city of five thousand inhabitants lying at an altitude of 1,002 meters deep in a valley in the Austrian Alps, where some of the most important historical buildings are abandoned. A walk through the city center shows a collection of Exquisite corpses from the times of the Belle Époque.
A stone's throw from the Grand Hotel, in the heart of the city, is the Brutalist Palace of Congresses which began to be built when man stepped on the Moon, in 1969. It is also empty. The architect's concrete historic building Gerhard Garstenauer – for which he received the Salzburg Architecture Prize in 1975 – is in ruins.
The works of Garstenauer, heir to the Bauhaus, still arouse controversy . In the 1960s, the mayor Anton Kerschbaumer she wanted his star architect to be the icebreaker that would transform the exhausted spa town into an innovative space. For some neighbors, what Garstenauer built was a gigantic bunker . Even worse: he did it in front of everyone.
Entrance of the Grand Hotel de l'Europe
Its bare concrete textures seemed nonsense to them. Garstenauer also designed the futuristic Felsentherme spa in 1968, that is maintained with a vitality that allows us to more fairly appreciate his groundbreaking legacy.
In this decadent scenario, for a few years a group of young entrepreneurs is betting on changing the face of Bad Gastein. As if they wanted to continue a unfinished work and save it from ruin, have begun to open new businesses. “As a child I imagined that Manhattan must be like Bad Gastein ", He says Olaf Krohn , one of the entrepreneurs, owner of the Hotel Regina , who came as a child with his parents from Hamburg to spend the summer in Bad Gastein.
"It's like New York," he agrees. architect Ike Ikrath in another time and in another place, the roof of his modern Miramonte Hotel , where we go up to contemplate the urban spectacle offered by the city in the middle of the alpine valley. Ikrath conspired with actor Friedrich Liechtenstein to create the first vertical film festival here, Die Erste Vertikale , in a transgressive 9:16 portrait format.
It is even common to read in the Austrian and German press that Bad Gastein is now **underground like Berlin** – the Berlin of the Alps (sic) ** –. nadin brendel came from Berlin, where she worked organizing European tours for groups like arcade Fire , to set up their communication agency and live next to the waterfall that falls in the heart of the city-spa: “ Artists and creative minds with unconventional ideas are arriving . Bad Gastein is the perfect combination of city and wild nature.” It refers to the festival ** Sommer.frische.kunst , which in 2020 celebrates the tenth anniversary of its mission of make Bad Gastein a benchmark for contemporary art. To date, it has attracted 60 artists.
Hall of the Grand Hotel de l'Europe
Added to this contemporary advance is a new piece of news: the three imperial buildings of Straubinger Platz , empty for decades – Badeschloss , the former Straubinger Hotel and the historic post house –, have begun to be rehabilitated and the state of Salzburg announces the opening of a new large hotel by 2023.
The Straubinger family was also the owner, in the convulsive decade of the 1930s, of the Hotel Villa Excelsior , which in 2003 was responsible for recovering Christof Erharter . Preserve your hot springs with waters rich in radon gas , which apparently help promote a healthy sex life.
“Sigmund Freud was a regular guest at the Villa Excelsior between 1916 and 1923” Erharter told us. "Recently his heirs stayed at the hotel and showed me the correspondence he had written from here." In addition to writing and enjoying the healing waters, it seems that Dr. Freud locked himself in room 18 to have sex with Minna Bernays , the little sister of his wife. His wife had long since grown tired of her sexual experimentation.
The Villa Excelsior is actor and singer Friedrich Liechtenstein's favorite filming location , trained as an artist in the former East Berlin. If someone could interpret the German version of the great beauty of Paolo Sorrentino, that's Liechtenstein. your video _ Das Badeschloss (Made for the future) _ summarizes in less than four minutes the entire elegant decadence of Bad Gastein . In fact, his only conceptual electronic pop album is titled Bad Gastein. “People have been coming for decades for their Healing powers . But what makes this place stand out is your layout vertical Liechtenstein says.
Villa Excelsior Hotel Hot Springs
The Belle Époque mansions around the Villa Excelsior form an authentic golden mile with the footprints of famous figures. Here they spent their good seasons Franklin D. Roosevelt, Albert Einstein, Billy Wilder. thomas mann worked on his novel The chosen one Or at least he tried. He was already an established writer and the German neighbors came like groupies to meet him.
The spa town tradition goes back to the 19th century . Before them, the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, the composer Franz-Schubert –who created here his Gasteiner Symphony in 1825– and the Empress Sissi.
Two of the three buildings that are being renovated in the heart of the city, after decades of eviction, were imperial residences in the 19th century: if the emperor Wilhelm I of Germany remained faithful to the Badeschloss hotel for years, the emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria he preferred the Straubinger, just a few steps across the street.
Bad Gastein imposes its vertical beauty , but actually only 0.2 percent of its territory has built works . It has more hectares covered by sweet water (0.7 percent) than for cement. The rest is occupied by high mountains, forests and glaciers . It is inside the Hohe Tauern National Park.
Since 1972 it has had an alpine road that leads through a gorge, perfect for watching avalanches, to Sportgastein, the little Tibet of the Alps , in the words of nadin brendel . If today the valley has fifteen thousand inhabitants and seventeen thousand hotel beds, it is, in part, due to its ski facilities. It offers fans 207 kilometers of snowy slopes six months a year and an altitude that reaches 2,686 meters in Sportgastein. Pope John Paul II came here to ski incognito.
David Granda, author of the report, imitating the famous photo by Friedrich Liachtenstein in a bathtub at the Villa Excelsior
In the Gastein valley there are three large municipalities. Jason Houzer , a young Bavarian who works in the management of the Hotel Regina, sarcastically sums it up with a geographical metaphor: “ If Bad Gastein is Manhattan, Bad Hofgastein is New Jersey ”. Dorfgastein, the third municipality and the first to receive you at the entrance to the valley, is not even mentioned. It's probably his particular Nebraska and it is only 15 kilometers away.
Bad Hofgastein and Dorfgastein These are two typical towns in the Austrian Alps where, from November to April, you can see the passengers of the municipal buses traveling with their skis and snowboards. In the center of Bad Hofgastein there is a fashion store for traditional Austrian and Bavarian costumes, the dirndl (Her and him lederhosen (he; although now she too) . It's easier to eat Leberkässemmel (bun with a local sausage) than a hamburger.
Y if New Jersey has Patti Smith and Paul Auster, Bad Hofgastein has Snow Jazz Gastein , the only high mountain jazz festival in the world. It has various venues scattered throughout the valley, but the totemic scenario is the Sägewerk , an old sawmill owned by the family of Sepp Grabmaier , the founder of the festival two decades ago.
After 450 years of activity, the sawmill closed in 1982 and Sepp restored it and transformed it into an atelier for the sculptures and forgings of him in the 90s . His friends in town helped him and he, in return, threw a party. The party got out of hand and ended up in an annual jazz festival . “To be honest, most of the musicians come because we have good rum,” he told me when I met him. Then he served me rum. That night he acted David Kikowski, the great jazz pianist from New Jersey. He probably felt at home.
Bad Gastein in winter
HOW TO GET
The Gastein Valley is two and a half hours from Munich International Airport in Germany. From Spain, the connection with the airport of the Bavarian capital is the most recommended. Both Iberia and Lufthansa operate direct flights daily. From Vienna there is a direct ÖBB train, the state railway company, on a journey that lasts four hours. By car the duration of the trip is similar. can also be reached by train from Venice in four and a half hours . The state capital, salzburg , is less than an hour by road.
WHERE TO SLEEP
Das Regina (Karl Heinrich Waggerl Strasse 5 Bad Gastein) . Signature hotel (specifically, by Olaf Krohne) with 32 rooms, a small spa, sauna, library with fireplace and private cinema room . A bar with a lively bar and one of the most recommended restaurants in the city.
Hotel Miramonte (Reitl promenade 3; Bad Gastein). the property of Ike and Evelyn Ikrath is another of the new accommodations that intend to change the face of Bad Gastein. The terrace of its lounge & bar retro aesthetic is superb , just like the unobstructed panorama of the valley on the horizon. Spa and sauna with access to hot spring baths and co-working spaces . It is one of the venues for the Snow Jazz Gastein festival.
Villa Excelsior (Reitlstrasse 20; Bad Gastein). In contrast to the modernity of the Regina and the Miramonte, Villa Excelsior is a typical hotel of the Austrian Alps and Sigmund Freud's favorite at the beginning of the 20th century and of Friedrich Liechtenstein, already in the 21st century.
Felsentherme spa pool and loungers
Hotel Osterreichischer (Hof Kurgartenstrasse 9; Bad Hofgastein). Traditional Austrian hotel with direct access to the Alpentherme complex to enjoy the famous Bad Gastein hot springs . They have indoor and outdoor pool (highly recommended, especially in winter, for its hot water), a wide variety of saunas and a fitness center.
HOT SPRINGS
Felsen thermal _(Bahnhofplatz 5; Bad Gastein) _In the valley 18 natural sources of hot springs emerge . For bathing in Bad Gastein, the alternative to Alpentherme is Felsentherme , a spa with an indoor pool flanked by natural rock walls. The visit is highly recommended and not only for its hot springs. The design of the structure – groundbreaking and functionalist like the Palacio de Congresos – is the work of the architect Gerhard Garstenauer.
Owners of the Das Regina hotel, in Scout
WHERE TO EAT
ValerieHaus (Nassfeld 5 Bad Gastein; Sportgastein). At 1,588 meters above sea level, this alpine restaurant was founded in 1889 as a high mountain refuge . Its views of the Nassfeld landscape are unique at any time of the year.
The Regina and Miramonte restaurants , both in Bad Gastein, and from Osterreichischer Hof , in Bad Hofgastein, are also great options.
Cafe Schuh
A COFFEE WITH A VIEW
Kraftwerk Cafe (Wasserfallstrasse 7; Bad Gastein). Cafe and bistro located at the foot of the waterfall in the center of Bad Gastein.
WHERE TO LISTEN TO JAZZ
Sägewerk _(Angerweg 32; Bad Hofgastein) _. Venue of the Snow Jazz Gastein festival during the month of March. The rest of the year it is a jazz club and cabaret.
***** _This report was published in **number 134 of Condé Nast Traveler Magazine (December)**. Subscribe to the printed edition (11 printed issues and a digital version for €24.75, by calling 902 53 55 57 or from our website). The December issue of Condé Nast Traveler is available in its digital version to enjoy on your preferred device. _
Detail of the carpeted floors of the Österreichischer Hof hotel