Recommendations for Thermal Bath/Spa in Bavaria

Therme Erding, northeast of Munich, is magnificent. It's about a half-mile walk from the Altenerding stop on the S2. I spent the last day of my nine-day Germany trip there last year. It was a wonderful way to rest and relax in preparation for the trip home. Well worthwhile. The website linked above will tell you all you need to know to have a wonderful visit.

About an hour's train ride west of Munich is the town of Bad Wörishofen, long a destination for those seeking hot springs and hydrotherapy. Fr. Sebastian Kneipp, a 19th-Century priest and one of the founders of the naturopathic medicine movement, made his home there. Some of the inns and resorts in town still offer Kneipp's therapies. Just northwest of the town center is Therme Bad Wörishofen, a modern spa/sauna/waterpark very similar to Therme Erding and owned by the same company. But it's smaller, quieter and less crowded than TE, and in that way more pleasant.

If you are in Bad Wörishofen on a Sunday, go to the open-air cafe on the small grass-runway airfield on the north side of town and watch skydivers do their thing, while you wait for your 45-minute ride over Neuschwanstein or the Lakes region in a classic 11-seat, Soviet-built Antonov An-2 biplane (advance reservation required; photos here).

Therme Erding is just about the ultimate spa experience. It's huge, and offers the complete thermal bath/sauna experience (FKK), a slightly less extensive area with bathing suits, and a large indoor waterpark. It's very convenient to reach from the airport. They have recently added an attached hotel shaped like a ship-of-the-line.

Kristall Palm Beach near Nurnberg is also a pretty good one, similar to Therme Erding but smaller.

I've also visited the Obermain Therme in Bad Staffelstein. OK if you're in the area anyway, but I wouldn't go out of my way to visit it.

PS- Yes, Baden-Baden is for some reason the only thermal resort that RS mentions, but it's only one of about 100 located throughout Germany. And it's not in Bavaria, it's in Baden-Württemberg.

First, Baden-Baden is not in Bavaria. It is in Baden-Württemburg and on the far side of that Land (state) from Bavaria.

There are a number of spas (Therme) in Bavaria besides Erding, some farther east, nearer to Salzburg. One is the Watzmann Therme in Berchtesgaden, just an hour from Salzburg.

Another is in Bad Aibling. Bad Aibling is on the rail line from Rosenheim to Holzkirchen, in the hills of Oberbayern.

There is also a Therme in Oberstaufen, on the way to Lindau and the Bodensee.

I've stayed in Bad Kissingen, but didn't bathe there. Nice little elegant spa town. Subtract all the bling boutiques and tour buses of Baden-Baden, and it kind of looks similar.