Discover Bad Staffelstein

Bad Staffelstein offers a wide variety of ways to explore: brine in the spa gardens, mathematical discoveries along the Adam Riese Adventure Trail, sculptures along the Lauterbach and local history at the town hall and museum. This means you can choose between outdoor activities, culture and a thermal brine bath for your trip.

Spa Gardens, Brine and Thermal Spa

As you stroll through the spa gardens, you can breathe in brine mist from the graduation towers. Admission to the park is free, and it is open at all times. The graduation towers are open daily and free of charge from Easter until late autumn; the start of the season depends on the Easter calendar. This makes it easy to distinguish the park’s year-round access from the seasonal use of the graduation towers.

The Obermain Therme offers bathing in thermal brine and has Bavaria’s warmest and strongest thermal brine. This means the spa gardens and thermal spa offer two distinct brine experiences: a walk outdoors amid brine mist, and bathing in thermal brine. When planning your days, you can decide whether a visit to the park, a trip to the thermal spa or both best suit your travel interests.

Explore on Foot or by Bike

Six selected cycling routes start and finish right in Bad Staffelstein. If you would rather take a walking route, the sculpture trail offers a different way to explore the town: it leads from the spa area and the Obermain Therme along the Lauterbach to the town centre. Works along the route include “Apollo and Daphne” and “Rising Up”. The difference is simple: Bad Staffelstein is the starting and finishing point for the cycling routes, while the sculpture trail connects the area along the Lauterbach with the town centre.

Another way to discover the town is the Adam Riese Adventure Trail. It combines mathematics and local history in an interactive discovery tour, with ten stations covering the digits 1 to 9 and 0. Puzzles and hands-on activities invite you to calculate, experiment and explore. For families exploring with children, the trail offers plenty of engaging activities without limiting the stations to a single subject: both mathematics and local history are part of the experience.

Stations on the adventure trail are located at Aqua Riese, in the spa gardens and at the Obermain Therme, as well as around the railway station, along Bahnhofstraße, at the town wall behind the town museum and at the Tourist Information office. Their locations bring together different aspects of the town in a tour that passes through several areas. If you want to visit a particular station, you can choose it based on your interest in mathematics, history or another topic.

Local History and Events

Since 1990, the Bad Staffelstein Town Museum has been housed in the former school building, constructed in 1856. Its exhibits include archaeological finds from Staffelberg, documents on the town’s development and religious artefacts. The collection also covers minerals and fossils from the Franconian Jura, the origins of the Obermain Therme and has a dedicated section on the master calculator Adam Ries(e). A museum visit therefore ranges from regional natural history and the town’s development to the history of mathematics.

The town hall also tells the story of the town. Today, it is regarded as a landmark, and large sections of its ground-floor walls date back to the late Middle Ages. The building was affected by the town fires of 1473 and 1684. If you are interested in historic buildings, these surviving sections of wall offer a tangible starting point for taking a closer look at the town hall.

For cultural events, the lake stage in the spa gardens and the Brewers’ Festival are two different points of interest. The lake stage is a central venue for a broad range of cultural events. The annual Brewers’ Festival takes place on 15 August, the Catholic feast of the Assumption of Mary, in the market square beside the half-timbered town hall. If you would like to plan your trip around the festival, check the event dates in advance.

Bad Staffelstein and Lichtenfels in Your Travel Plans

The wider destination of Lichtenfels offers its own places and themes to explore. The old town of Lichtenfels has retained its typically Franconian character; the Bamberg Gate and Kronach Gate are still standing, and sections of the old town wall remain visible. The Lichtenfels Basket Market takes place every year on the third weekend in September. Exploring the old town and attending a recurring event are therefore separate reasons to include Lichtenfels in your travel plans.

The Wickerwork Culture Trail is also in Lichtenfels: this 14-kilometre circular trail links Lichtenfels and Michelau along nature-rich paths through the Main floodplains. Its 23 information boards cover the history and traditions of basket making, the basket industry and basket trading along the Upper Main. Near Oberwallenstadt, there is also a willow maze for children and other woven installations, including a willow shell at the river bathing area and a tipi at the Oberwallenstadt Ortswiesensee. You can choose your accommodation and itinerary to match the experiences you are looking for, without confusing the different towns and what they offer.

Discover more destinations: Schwabthal, Altenkunstadt, Marktzeuln, Ebensfeld, Lichtenfels, Weismain, Burgkunstadt, Redwitz an der Rodach.

Back to the main travel overview: Lichtenfels.