How to Take the Cure

Suffering from a chronic case of the gout? Irregularity? Bad case of athlete's foot? When in distress, do as the Romans did and take the waters of Europe. As bathing enthusiast and noted fiddler Emperor Nero said, "Sanitas per aquas" (Health through water). Mineral baths are claimed to cure a plethora of afflictions, including rheumatism, arthritis, leprosy, itching, ulcers-even venereal disease.

Heck, even if the cure doesn't take, lolling around in hot water is a good way to take your mind off of work. Sure, some mineral waters smell like rotten eggs, and not everyone enjoys going around half-naked with a bunch of pasty-skinned strangers. Still, most mineral spas are so well staffed with pamperers that it would be hard to leave feeling worse than when you arrived. Unlike the United States, in Europe you won't find many free weights, aerobics classes, or wally-ball. Europeans go to the spa to get soft, not firm up.

Here are some of the better European spa possibilities: England Since Roman times, people have been immersing themselves in Bath's thermal waters in hopes of salutary outcomes. Bath's springs produce a constant flow of 300,000 gallons per day at a temperature of 116 degrees.

The water, which can be sampled in the famed Pump Room, contains calcium, chloride, hydrogen carbonate, and 40 other minerals, and is said to have magical curative properties.

The Romans constructed Bath in 43 A.D. as a place where Legionnaires could come to get a little rest from guarding the frontiers. Bath got to be such fun that dictates from Rome were periodically issued to stop partying all the time. Bath was rediscovered in 1690 after centuries of disuse, and experienced its greatest period under master of ceremonies Beau Nash, from 1705 until 1760. During the Victorian era, novelists Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, and Jane Austen all took Bath's waters. Bath served as a convalescent facility for British soldiers after the Second World War. During the latter half of the 20th century, the baths fell into decline and were closed in 1978 for health reasons.

Public baths are slated for reopening in February 2003, when Bath will regain its status as England's premier spot to take the waters. Sadly for purists, the reopening of the bathhouses brings with it the chi-chi trappings of modernity in the form of (ahem...) a five-story stone and glass spa smack in the middle of the old Roman baths. Well, even if the spa doesn't measure up, Bath is a perfectly preserved 18th-century city loaded with historical sightseeing. Regular trains run to and from London's Paddington Station.