Schloss Nymphenburg: Badenburg

The last building to visit in Nymphenburg, other than the fountains and follies of course, lays quite a ways away from the other buildings. I would encourage you to continue your way around the canal, take in the Great Cascade as you go along, as well as the Apollo-Tempel or Temple of Apollo folly. It’s a cute little place to sit, relax, take in the view of the lake and the Badenburg, and rest your feet. You’ve likely been on your feet for most of the day by this point, unless you ran through Nymphenburg or made your way to this part of it first. In any case, it’s still a cute little spot to take pictures of the parklands. Credit where credit is due, both of these photos were taken by Forest!

The Badenburg itself is located across the pond if you’re coming from the direction of the Great Cascade. The outer architecture is reminiscent of the rest of Nymphenburg, and the inner decorations are in the same Rococo style as the rest of the palace buildings, the Magdalenenklause not included, naturally. The nature of the building is rather different than the rest of Nymphenburg. Although all of the buildings arguably have a purpose, the Badenburg’s purpose is much more practical. It’s a bathhouse!

The inspiration for the Badenburg comes from the ancient traditions found in Rome, Greece, and Islamic countries, in which bathhouses were used for ritual as well as physical cleanliness, and were also used as a meeting place for men and women, though not at the same time. In the times of the Roman Republic and Empire men and women were given different times as well as different days which the baths were open to either gender. These Thermae, Balneae, and Hammam respectively were very important and all had one thing in common; for the most part they were public, but the rich could afford private baths.

Badenburg is no exception. It was built so that one could have a bath in comfort, and like many of the ancient days it has a reception or banquet hall (many of the ancient baths also had food available), a changing room, and a progression from cold to hot rooms until finally one finds oneself in the bath itself. In Badenburg it is surrounded by a viewing platform where modern guests can look down onto the place where the hot pool used to be. I can imagine a few fool hearty souls would have jumped over the edge, though I doubted it would have ended comfortably for them in the shallow water. Visitors are not allowed into the other rooms, and so the classically inspired banquet hall and pool hall along with a brief glimpse of the Chinoiserie decorated changing room entrances are all that you will be able to see.

When you leave the Badenburg there is still a lot of Nymphenburg to see, including the grounds, the pump house, and the greenhouse, but this is the end of the buildings which Forest and I saw. Next up we’ll take an in depth look at the follies, fountains, and other garden features around the palace!