I tried a traditional Austrian naked sauna for the first time and these are the strict rules you must follow
I braved a traditional Austrian sauna with several strict rules - the main one being that you’re only allowed in if you’re stark naked.
Picture the scene. I’d been invited by Wizz Air on a press trip to the Schladming-Dachstein region of Austria and due to an early flight and several bad decisions on my part, I hadn’t had any proper kip for around 30 hours.
After a very beautiful but very rainy hike through the Silberkarklamm canyon, you can imagine it was music to my ears that the traditional mountain hotel we were staying at - the four-star Hotel Berghof in Ramsau am Dachstein - had five saunas downstairs.
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However, sensing a culture clash on the horizon, our Austria tourist board contact - the fabulous Magdalena Penz - had a quick word with the reception desk and confirmed some chilling news: you were only allowed in the saunas if you took your kit off. All of it. And apparently some people can get very offended if you try and go in wearing swimming trunks or bikinis.
While the rest of our party reacted to this with mild horror, my recent soaking on the walk and ongoing sleep deprivation meant I really, really would appreciate sweating it out in some dry heat for 15 minutes, and I was prepared to go native to do it.
Why do you have to get naked in Austrian saunas?
It’s mainly a hygiene thing - with Austrians widely thinking it’s icky to sweat profusely into your swimwear while relaxing in a sauna.
If public nudity is an absolute no-no for you, most places will let you wrap yourself in your towel. The sauna I tried seemed hotter than most in the UK though, so I doubt this would be particularly comfortable.
It’s much easier really to let it all hang out, nobody I saw at Hotel Berghof was trying to cover up with a towel.
What are the other rules you have to follow?
Realising I was in danger of making a serious cultural faux pas if I just blundered in there, I used Google Translate to decipher a note in my room which rather euphemistically said: “We ask you to use the small blue towels from the sauna area as a base.”
So worry not about sitting where various bare arses have sat before - there were stacks of small square towels to plonk your derriere on while inside the saunas.
The next question I wish I’d Googled while I sat nervously downstairs by the poolside is if the saunas are unisex.
In the misty back alleys of my brain, I recalled that Swedes aren’t shy about mixed gender nude saunas, while Finns prefer to keep men and women separate. I hadn’t a clue about Austria.
Cue a mental image of women gasping in horror and berating me in German while I wished the floor would swallow me whole.
I was reduced to watching the entrance of the sauna anxiously and eventually saw both men and women emerging from it. Reasoning I was good to go, I whipped off my trunks in the changing rooms, wrapped myself in a towel, then a bathrobe, before waddling towards the sauna.
After seeing a flash of bare bum through the sauna window, my courage failed me and I asked someone by the pool: “Are there men and women only saunas, or both in both?”
They confirmed all genders could use all saunas, so now there really was no excuse.
I headed into the sauna, politely nodded at the man and woman already inside, peeled off my robe and plonked myself down on my square blue towel.
What was it like inside?
Once inside - completely starkers and sat next to two naked strangers - I realised I had perhaps been overreacting.
Since with most interactions with fellow humans you tend to look them in the face rather than the chest and groin region, I never felt like I was being ogled and didn’t find it awkward sharing with other naked people.
Granted, things probably would have been mortifying if I’d decided to strip down with a group of friends, but as it was I was loving life.
The one thing I failed to account for was that while the panoramic sauna I’d chosen had a breathtaking view of the surrounding mountains, it also faced directly onto the outdoor pool, meaning there was a chance swimmers could get more than they bargained for if they looked in through the sauna’s panoramic window. I made sure to keep my legs closed.
After a few minutes, the gentleman I was sharing with tried speaking to me in German - proof, I felt, that I was now a master of Austrian sauna etiquette.
He then switched to embarrassingly good English, and explained he wanted to know if I was alright with him labelling some kind of scented oil over the sauna’s hot coals. As he promised, it smelled very nice.
So there I was, taking it all in, gazing out onto the mountains, soaked in sweat, and reflecting that it really was better to get over our British prudishness around nudity and stop being so embarrassed about our naked bodies.
Maybe Austria had taught me self love? In any case, 10/10 sauna at Hotel Berghof, would recommend.
What to do in the Schladming-Dachstein region
While the Schladming-Dachstein region is primarily a ski resort, there’s plenty going on in summer too.
We hopped on a cable car up to Dachstein glacier, a staggering 2,700m (8,800ft) above sea level. As you might expect, it’s a vertigo sufferer’s nightmare - with viewpoints dubbed the stairway to heaven and stairway to nothingness testing our head for heights.
Best of all, you have the rare opportunity to walk inside a glacier - under 6m of solid ice - and take a look at some incredible ice sculptures.
And, if you’re truly fearless, you can try your hand at via ferrata, in which you scramble across sheer rock faces attached to metal wires.
We spotted someone doing this at the top of the mountain, and all I can say is he was a braver man than me.
For a one night hotel stay in one of the 1,000 participating accommodation providers in the region between 17 May and 3 November, you get access to the Schladming-Dachstein Sommercard, which gives you free entry to all sorts of tourist attractions. For a two-night stay you get the cable car up the Dachstein glacier included and you can check out that glacier.
Double rooms at Hotel Berghof start from €120 (£100) per night, including breakfast. I can confirm the breakfast there is excellent.
You can get to Schladming from Salzburg via train, and it takes roughly an hour and a half. From there, you can get a bus to Ramsau am Dachstein, which should take around 20 minutes.
Wizz Air flies out from London Luton direct to Salzburg on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, with prices starting from £17.99 for a one-way flight and £35.98 for a return.
Topics: Travel
Simon Fearn