Bad Münster | schwingeninswitzerland

We’ve done our fair share of traveling in France lately. We’ve noticed virtually every town there has monuments to local citizens who died in service of their country. The lists of names, often including those deported and killed locally, are a touching remembrance.

Veterans Day annually falls on November 11, but to make it a bank holiday/federal holiday it is observed on Monday, November 12 in the United States . Why November 11? On November 11, 1918, the armistice ending World War I was signed. On that day, hostilities between the Allied countries and Germany officially ended. Germany

Technical innovations like the machine gun, poison gas, tanks, and aircraft appeared in battle for the first time in World War I. Scientific advances and industrialization joined to create enormous death tolls. Germany lost 1,800,000; the Soviet Union lost 1,700,000; France lost 1,385,000; Austria lost 1,200,000; Great Britain lost 947,000. While that may seem small in comparison to some of the other countries listed, about 1/3 of Great Britain’s male population died in The Great War! Extrapolating, it’s difficult to imagine the devastating effects on experienced by some of the other countries listed, especially those who had the war fought on their soil.

Although we haven’t seen quite as many such monuments in Germany, we did see a few there too. We came across the one below in Bad Munster, near Bad Kreuznach in Germany.

After WWII, the holiday was expanded to remember those who served in that war. In the US, we’ve had a significant number of wars over the last century Veterans Day honors and thanks veterans for their service to their country.

War requires sacrifices and troops bear more of them than most. It is important to remember those sacrifices and the people who made them. War isn’t a triviality. It’s important to remember that it carries with it a human cost. Whether you call it Armistice Day or Veterans Day, it is a time to remember the price paid, the sacrifices of those that have served and honor those that did.

While in Bad Kreuznach, Germany we saw giant structures on the side of the road. They were 9 meters (27 feet) high and looked almost like walls. We wondered whether they were for flooding, remnants of ramparts or used for something else. It turns out that they are Saline graduation towers, structures used to produce salt by removing water from Saline solution via evaporation.

The towers are made from a wooden wall-like frame stuffed with bundles of brushwood (typically blackthorn). The Nahe valley has many salt springs. Salt water from them runs down the tower and partly evaporates, leaving minerals behind on the twigs. The water in the bottom has a higher salt content (as a result of the evaporation).

We’d never seen these before, but apparently they are in spa towns in Germany, Poland and Austria. Our friends told us that the air around them is beneficial and people with lung problems flock to them like they do to the seaside. The salt water (for both inhalation and bathing) remains a remedy for rheumatic diseases, asthma and skin conditions.

Of course, we had to check them out. We hiked through the Salinental valley from Bad Kreuznach to Bad Münster to see them. They were pretty sweet. You almost got a high from breathing in the air. It had a salty, tangy, fresh smell, kind of like the ocean without any fishy odors. The area around the towers felt cool and it was very refreshing.

The Kurpark gardens are billed as Europe’s largest open-air inhalatorium, they offer private salt rooms and spas on site. saline nebulizer, the thermal baths and a number of rehabilitation clinics. Saline nebulizers spray a fine salt mist into the surrounding area. The saltwater droplets are then breathed deep into the bronchial tubes.

You have been able to get radon therapy for rheumatism and inflammations for over 100 years. Bad Kreuznach pioneered radon therapy in an underground quicksilver chamber. Patients sit in an underground room, inhaling radon gas. I was surprised to see it because we had to do a radon test in our basement when I was a kid.

We walked along the water to adjacent Bad Munster. Although there isn’t a ton besides campers and more spas in Bad Munster, it was beautiful. It was so beautiful that Turner even painted it. In 1844 while exploring the smaller valleys of the Rhine, he painted the castle of Ebernburg from the Valley of the Alsenz (click here to see the painting or go see it at the Tate in London).