Four centuries of spring records
A settlement called Chudoba appears in records in the 14th century, but the thing it is known for shows up later. A mineral spring is noted here in 1587, then called the Eugenquelle and now the Śniadecki spring. In 1622 Georg Aelurius described the waters in his Glaciographia, the first printed history of the Kłodzko region, and the first wooden bathing structures went up in 1636, while the Thirty Years' War was still running.
The county passed from Bohemia to Prussia in the second half of the 18th century, and things moved faster after that. In 1765 Frederick II ordered the spring water to be tested, seven years later the first pump room opened, and around 1800 an octagonal building with a wooden dome replaced it. The park and promenade date from 1820.
The turning point was the first scientific analysis of the waters, published by Adolph Duflos in 1850; from then on Kudowa operated officially as a spa. Twenty years later it was recognised as Germany's first cardiac resort, healing mud came into use in 1874, and the railway from Kłodzko arrived in 1905. The name Bad Kudowa was granted in 1920, town rights only in 1945, and the present Polish name a year after that.
The water and what it treats
The basis of treatment is what Polish balneology calls a szczawa — water so saturated with carbon dioxide that you taste the gas — here in sodium-calcium bicarbonate, ferrous and boron varieties. Three of the intakes carry names that date their christening: Śniadecki, Moniuszko and Marchlewski. Some springs are for drinking cures, others for baths.
Local peat does the rest of the work. Healing mud has been used for baths and compresses since the second half of the 19th century. The real speciality, though, is carbon dioxide gas and dry gas baths: absorbed through the skin, the gas dilates peripheral vessels, which is where the town's cardiac reputation comes from.
Approved treatment areas cover digestive, circulatory and blood-forming disorders, orthopaedic and post-trauma conditions, endocrine and rheumatological complaints, and obesity, with an emphasis on children and adolescents that is unusual among Polish spas. The bioclimate counts as a submontane and montane one of moderate stimulus: mean annual temperature a little over seven degrees, annual rainfall in the six hundreds of millimetres, and snow cover on roughly sixty days a year.
Park, pump room and a town made of villages
The spa park laid out in 1820 is now a listed monument, registered as a landscape composition of the late 18th to 20th centuries. Beside it stands the pump room completed in 1931, built together with a bandstand and a promenade hall; after restoration the interior reads as interwar again. The bandstand is in use: the Moniuszko festival has been held here each August since 1962.
The present town is several former villages grown together — Czermna, Zakrze and the higher-lying Pstrążna among them. That is why the most interesting places lie a few kilometres from the spa quarter, and why the population of just over nine thousand is spread across a large area.
Two things about the setting stand out. The Czech border runs along the south and west, and the Kudowa basin is cut off from the Kłodzko Valley by the Polskie Wrota pass, so Hronov and Náchod in Bohemia are closer than Kłodzko. And the Bystra stream drains, by way of the Metuje, not to the Oder but to the Elbe — a rarity on the Polish side of the Sudetes.
Czermna, Pstrążna and the rest of town
At Czermna, next to the church of St Bartholomew, stands the Chapel of Skulls, one of three of its kind in Europe, lined inside with human skulls and bones. The portal covers it on a page of its own, so it is enough to say here that it is a quarter of an hour on foot from the spa quarter and that for many visitors it is the actual reason for coming. The same district also shows a mechanical nativity scene with some two hundred and fifty figures.
Pstrążna lies higher, already in the Orlickie foothills, and holds the Museum of Folk Culture of the Sudetes Foreland — an open-air collection of regional timber buildings, well away from traffic and promenades. In the town itself there is a toy museum, and the former frog museum has become the eco-centre of Stołowe Mountains National Park. Trails to Szczeliniec Wielki and the Błędne Skały rock labyrinth start from here, though each of those deserves a day of its own.
Getting there
- By car — national road 8, the Polish stretch of European route E67 from Prague to Helsinki; the border crossing is inside the town.
- From Kłodzko — regional road 387 through Ścinawka Górna is quieter and better looking than the main route.
- By train — Kudowa-Zdrój station, on the line from Kłodzko open since 1905.
- On foot — the spa quarter is compact and level, but Czermna, and Pstrążna especially, mean walking uphill.
Worth knowing
Kudowa works all year and does not shut down for winter, which is not a given in the Sudetes. For a single day, the useful split is park and pump room in the morning, one outlying district after. Trying to fit the spa quarter, Czermna, Pstrążna and the Stołowe Mountains into one day leaves too little of each.
Bring identity documents — the border is close enough to cross by accident. What is open and which treatments are on offer shifts from season to season, so it is worth checking at source before setting out.
How to get there and practical info
- Location
- Kudowa basin below the Stołowe Mountains, valley of the Bystra stream, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Kłodzko county; Czech border to the south and west
- Elevation
- roughly 370–420 metres above sea level
- What it is
- a statutory spa town; mineral spring recorded in 1587, official spa status from 1850
- Healing resources
- sodium-calcium bicarbonate, ferrous and boron sparkling waters, plus healing mud
- Conditions treated
- digestive, circulatory and blood-forming, orthopaedic and post-trauma, endocrine, rheumatological, obesity in children and adolescents
- Claim to note
- recognised from 1870 as the first cardiac spa in Germany
- Spa park
- laid out in 1820, listed as a composition of the late 18th to 20th centuries
- Pump room
- completed in 1931 together with a bandstand and promenade hall
- Within the town
- Chapel of Skulls and St Bartholomew's church at Czermna, open-air museum at Pstrążna, toy museum, national park eco-centre
- Events
- Moniuszko festival each August, since 1962
- Climate
- submontane and montane bioclimate of moderate stimulus; snow cover on about sixty days a year
- How long to stay
- a day for the spa quarter and one district; the Stołowe Mountains need a separate day
- Current hours and tickets
- official website of Kudowa-Zdrój
When to go
The park wakes early and is at its quietest then, while the pump room tastes the same as in season. A good time for Pstrążna, with the grass low and the layout of the open-air museum easy to read.
Peak season: spa guests, coach parties heading for Czermna, and the August festival. Set out early for the Stołowe Mountains, because the car parks at Błędne Skały fill by afternoon.
The best season here. The beech woods above the basin turn, the park empties, and the weather often stays mild for weeks.
The spa runs normally and treatments happen indoors. The valley itself often has little snow, while the higher ground and the Czech side are properly wintry.
Other sights in Kotlina Kłodzka
Straight-line distances from „Kudowa-Zdrój — spa town" — calculated from real coordinates. By road it is often further.
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