Heritage is our legacy from the past, what we live with today, and what we pass on to future generations. Our cultural and natural heritage are both irreplaceable sources of life and inspiration. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) seeks to encourage the identification, protection, and preservation of cultural and natural heritage around the world considered to be of outstanding value to humanity. This is embodied in an international treaty called the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, adopted by UNESCO in 1972.
The Great Spa Towns of Europe is a World Heritage Site comprising 11 famous historic spa towns and cities in seven countries. Together, they make one “property” inscribed on the World Heritage List on 24 July 2021 as a transnational series. The Great Spas, in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom represent a unique cultural phenomenon which reached its height in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as a particular urban type and form. As a World Heritage Site, it has been given global recognition as a phenomenon which helped shape Europe.
CHF 1,10 – SPA Belgium
Spa, Pearl of the Belgian Ardennes, played an important role, as early as the seventeenth century, in the recognition of the medical properties of mineral water. Its carbonated waters were ideally suited to drinking and have been widely distributed across Europe ever since, leading to the introduction of the word “spa” in the English vocabulary. Since the early eighteenth century, Spa’s many springs, located on a wooded hillside south of the town were used for both crenotherapy (a branch of balneology in which mineral waters are used as a therapeutic internal cure by ingestion) and physical activity, with a network of walks linking the various springs and connecting them to the town. Spa became internationally renowned as the Café of Europe, and a pioneer of gambling. From the second half of the nineteenth century, it was transformed into a modern spa resort with French classicist architecture. Today, thermal tradition and know-how is sustained by the addition of a new thermal center overlooking the town.
CHF 1,50 – Vichy, France
Vichy, Queen of Spas, and France, greatly contributed to the creation of nineteenth-century European spa culture. It is the most prestigious and well-known French spa town, the model spa. Situated on a flat plain beside the River Allier, it combines Parisian urban principles with a spa promenade inside the city. Napoleon III encouraged the building of a new spa town laid out with parks and boulevards, a cosmopolitan Little Paris of grand bath complexes, pump rooms connected by covered promenades, casino and theatre, hotels, and villas. The success of Vichy resumed after difficult times in the Second World War, and bottled water, “reine des villes d’eaux”, continued to be exported in large quantities worldwide. This further provides the basis for trademark cosmetics and skincare products of the Vichy Laboratories, the leading skincare brand in European continental pharmacies.
