Bad Gastein is a thermal spa town draped across the steep walls of the Gasteinertal in the Austrian Alps, about 90 kilometres south of Salzburg. It is not a typical ski resort — it is something stranger and more interesting. The town hangs on near-vertical cliffs above a river, the streets connected by stairs and footbridges, a thundering waterfall crashing straight through the centre. Belle Époque grand hotels cling to the hillside above it all, a reminder that Empress Elisabeth of Austria, Kaiser Wilhelm II and half the crowned heads of Europe once came here to take the waters.
The waters are the point. Bad Gastein's thermal springs are mildly radioactive — they contain radon — and have been credited since the Middle Ages with curing rheumatic ailments. The spa culture is genuine and deeply Austrian: serious, a little medical, and extremely relaxing. The Felsentherme (rock pool thermal baths) sits beside the waterfall and feels nothing like a tourist trap. For the full radon experience, the Gasteiner Heilstollen in Böckstein offers medically supervised treatments inside a warm, radon-rich mine tunnel.
The town went through a long decline in the late twentieth century, as the grand hotels shuttered and the conference centre replaced the old Kurhaus. In recent years it has come back — partly as a ski destination (the Stubnerkogel gondola serves the local slopes), partly as a destination for architects and design types attracted to the photogenic decay of the Badeschloss and other crumbling palaces, and partly because the thermal baths are still excellent. Bad Gastein has an eccentric, slightly melancholy grandeur that most Alpine resorts lack entirely.
The Gastein Museum covers the town's extraordinary career as a royal resort. The valley also contains Bad Hofgastein (lower down, flatter, popular with families) and Dorfgastein (quieter still), connected by the Gastein Valley railway and shared ski passes.