--- title: The Forgotten Summer Ritual of 'Taking the Waters' at European Spa Towns description: In 1889, before our modern wellness retreats, Europeans escaped to spa towns every summer to stroll, socialize, and drink laxatives. canonical: https://time.com/article/2026/07/09/taking-the-waters-spa-wellness-culture-history/ author: Veronique Greenwood article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-07-09T19:21:19.347Z article:modified_time: 2026-07-09T19:21:19.507Z article:section: Health og:title: 'Taking the Waters' Was the Original Summer Getaway og:description: In 1889, it was the done thing in Europe: Come warm weather, people went to stroll, socialize, and drink laxatives. og:url: https://time.com/article/2026/07/09/taking-the-waters-spa-wellness-culture-history/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt29f2cce8c680f1b0/6a4d3108503bdab303cbb5f7/GettyImages-1399871949.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2032 og:image:height: 1143 og:image:alt: GettyImages-1399871949.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 'Taking the Waters' Was the Original Summer Getaway twitter:description: In 1889, it was the done thing in Europe: Come warm weather, people went to stroll, socialize, and drink laxatives. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt29f2cce8c680f1b0/6a4d3108503bdab303cbb5f7/GettyImages-1399871949.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 'Taking the Waters' Was the Original Summer Getaway > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. by [Veronique Greenwood](https://time.com/author/veronique-greenwood/) ## Veronique Greenwood Jul 9, 2026 7:21 PM UTC  A 19th-century illustration of the women's bath inside of Leukerbad, a spa in Switzerland. A 19th-century illustration of the women's bath inside of Leukerbad, a spa in Switzerland. clu—Getty Images by [Veronique Greenwood](https://time.com/author/veronique-greenwood/) ## Veronique Greenwood Jul 9, 2026 7:21 PM UTC [Summer](https://time.com/tag/summer/), for many of us, has its own comforting set of rituals. People pull out the barbecue, open fire hydrants, throw block parties. Maybe there are road trips, visits to grandparents, pool days, [beach days](https://time.com/4433438/beach-photos/). Maybe there’s a lake or an island and a ramshackle old house where the breeze comes through the windows at dusk every evening, the same as it always has, every summer you can remember. But in the 18th and 19th centuries, for many people, there was a summer ritual with a very different form. It was [the season for “taking the waters](https://time.com/archive/6887935/medicine-gurgle-gargle-guggle/),” which meant traveling to a countryside spa town like Harrogate in England or Karlsbad in Germany and spending the next few weeks or months under the care of a doctor, who would prescribe personalized treatments. These might be mineral water showers or baths, cold-water enemas, or just drinking 3 glasses of stinky, sulfurous spring water daily before breakfast, while strolling and engaging in pleasant conversation on a landscaped promenade. You didn’t have to be ill to take the waters. Especially for the well-off bourgeois of Europe, it was a required social ritual and time for recharging, says Astrid Köhler, a spa scholar and co-author of _The Health Resort in Modern European Literature_, so universally observed that in these months, at least in Germany, theaters and salons in the cities closed down: “Everyone is busy, going to the spas.” ## What was a typical summer day like for someone taking the waters? Often, the day started early. You might get up at 6 a.m. and head straight to the pump room, where water from a local healing spring—Harrogate had [around 100, with 36 bubbling up in a single field](https://www.friendsofvalleygardens.co.uk/)—had been piped in. A pump room attendant would fill you a glass of the water prescribed by your doctor. “You would drink as many glasses as prescribed, and then you would wait for the waters to pass,” says Sophie Vasset, a scholar at Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier in France and author of _Murky Waters: British Spas in Eighteenth Century Medicine and Literature_. That wouldn’t necessarily mean having a pee, she clarifies: “If the waters were salt waters, then they would be laxative.” The exact location of the restrooms was thus important knowledge for spa visitors, and Köhler confirms that “spas had to create rows of toilets.” Contemporary cartoons sometimes show [water-takers heading for the restrooms](https://www.prints-online.com/new-images-august-2021/comic-german-postcard-health-spa-toilets-23071792.html?srsltid=AfmBOoqS%5F-oOd8wYwCuY0ooU9gJTjw2l1Yga8giOMgE-GAgdh-h5aaJz) in great urgency. As they waited for the waters to take effect, Köhler explains, “people would walk up and down the promenade, or in the park…talking to other people, chatting, that sort of thing. Then the day would start.” ## What did people do all day? Many spas, in addition to landscaped parks and gardens, also had theaters, reading rooms, restaurants, and grand casinos. “The buildings are often too big for the size of the town,” says Köhler. “These are buildings that—in terms of their size, of their grandeur—belong in cities, and yet they're in those small little valleys. It's one of those distinctive features of spa architecture.” In these ornate halls, while those with more serious ailments might soak in mineral baths or endure being wrapped in a wet sheet for the sake of their health, others played cards, chatted with friends, and [attended concerts](http://harrogateband.org/hbhist2.html). The social and cultural aspect of spas was a major draw. ## Why don’t we go to spa towns today? As medicine grew more intertwined with the burgeoning science of chemistry, the medical benefits of spas came under scrutiny. “Water with iron in it was seen as fortifying, the sulfur waters were seen as good for rheumatism and respiratory problems, and some of the waters were seen as good for fertility, as well,” says Vasset. But scientists’ search for why these substances would have had these effects often came up empty. “Medicine in the 19th century was very, very keen to be absolutely scientific,” says Köhler. “So spas tried to catch up with that, but never quite managed, and were never quite taken seriously enough.” Looking back on the practice now, it seems logical that leaving a polluted city and engaging in regular exercise, alongside adequate hydration, healthy eating, and having a shared experience with others, did have beneficial effects on health, regardless of what was in the waters. But having leaned into the medical benefits of treatment, spas in the U.K. were in a difficult position later on when the National Health Service, founded in 1948, decided that water cures did not have sufficient evidence to be included in medical care paid for by the state. By that point, for a variety of reasons, the culture of spas as gathering places in the summer was on the wane, and many spa towns had to reinvent themselves. France did not give up entirely on water cures; people with a [wide variety of disorders](https://www.brides-les-bains.com/ete/en/courses-of-spa-treatments/reimbursement-course-of-spa-treatments/) can go to [thermal spas for treatments even today](https://theconversation.com/spa-holidays-in-france-taking-the-waters-with-a-doctors-prescription-231212) and be reimbursed within the French medical system. ## Is there a modern equivalent to taking the waters? Perhaps the closest analogue, Köhler speculates, are wellness retreats. She speaks of one colleague who goes regularly to a retreat in Sri Lanka. “It's about cleansing with waters, it's about yoga exercises, it's about all these things—she feels that she sort of renews herself.” Still, there is a significant difference. Modern wellness retreats are centered on the self: on self-actualization and optimization. In contrast, “the original spa culture was based on sociability,” she says. In 1800s spa guides, “you would find long pieces of prose about how important it is to be in pleasant company, to leave all your everyday worries behind, not to care about social status, but just to see people as people and try to be as pleasant to others as you can, and receive pleasantness from others.” At the same time, however, a common thread running through modern retreats and historical spas is that both provide succor for people who have ailments for which standard medicine might not have an answer yet, Köhler continues. In those days it might have been syphilis or tuberculosis, and today it might be [burnout](https://time.com/7297268/feeling-tired-fatigue-vs-burnout/) or [Long Covid](https://time.com/article/2026/07/06/cognitive-rehabilitation-help-long-covid-study/). She thinks this may be a universal need, consistent across time. “You do need this kind of institution that takes up the people and the conditions that cannot be cured in hospital,” she says. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/07/09/taking-the-waters-spa-wellness-culture-history/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/07/09/taking-the-waters-spa-wellness-culture-history/"},"headline":"'Taking the Waters' Was the Original Summer Getaway","datePublished":"2026-07-09T19:21:19.347Z","dateModified":"2026-07-09T19:21:19.507Z","description":"In 1889, it was the done thing in Europe: Come warm weather, people went to stroll, socialize, and drink laxatives.","url":"https://time.com/article/2026/07/09/taking-the-waters-spa-wellness-culture-history/","keywords":["Summer"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt29f2cce8c680f1b0/6a4d3108503bdab303cbb5f7/GettyImages-1399871949.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Veronique Greenwood","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/veronique-greenwood/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt29f2cce8c680f1b0/6a4d3108503bdab303cbb5f7/GettyImages-1399871949.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"GettyImages-1399871949.jpg","caption":"","creditText":"clu—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/summer/","name":"Summer"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/07/09/taking-the-waters-spa-wellness-culture-history/","name":"'Taking the Waters' Was the Original Summer Getaway"}}]}] ```