Rabka-Zdrój spa: brine graduation tower, pump rooms, treatments

Rabka-Zdrój is a spa in the Raba valley between the Gorce, the Beskid Wyspowy and the Beskid Makowski, halfway from Kraków to Zakopane. It is called the "children's town": since 1889, when a colony for sick children opened here, Rabka has specialised in treating children, though today it also receives adults. The spa's natural wealth is its brines, which in the 16th century people already tried to use for salt production. In 1858, at the request of the balneological commission of the Kraków Scientific Society, Dr Fryderyk Skobel analysed the local brine and found iodine and bromine at concentrations placing it among the strongest in Europe; the idea of a treatment centre was supported by Professor Józef Dietl. The spa officially opened in 1864, and the Kraków – Chabówka – Rabka railway of 1885 increased the number of guests sevenfold within five years. The main spa company is Uzdrowisko Rabka S.A.

Mineral waters and natural resources

Rabka's medicinal waters are mainly iodide-chloride-sodium brines with bromine from deep boreholes (up to 1.2 km). They are drawn from the Krakus, Warzelnia, Helena, Rabka-18, Rabka-19 and Rabka IG-2 intakes and used for baths, drinking and inhalation. For drinking cures, Rabka's pump rooms serve carbonated waters from Szczawnica – Jan, Józef, Józefina and Stefan; their general indications are airway diseases, rheumatic diseases, osteoporosis and obesity, and because of the boron a drinking cure should not exceed a month. Another resource is the climate: a basin sheltered from strong winds with good sunshine, without excessive heat or hard frosts.

Graduation tower and pump rooms

The spa's trademark is the complex in the Spa Park on aleja Jordana, opened on 22 June 2009: two round wooden pavilions joined by a roofed walkway. One houses a pump room with a hall for patients, the other an open-air graduation tower and inhalatorium. Brine of 1.87% from the Helena borehole (460 m deep) is pumped up 10 m and poured over a column of blackthorn branches; a brine mist forms around it, which you breathe while walking slowly around. Such inhalations are recommended for airway inflammation, allergies, exhaustion, and for people who work with their voice or in dust. A second pump room is in the treatment centre (Centrum Zdrowia i Urody) at ul. Orkana 49. Nearby in the park are the renovated concert shell for over 800 spectators and the characteristic "kiwajka" – a pump jack over the brine spring.

What is treated

In line with the spa's status, its treatment profiles are diseases of the upper and lower airways, orthopaedic and post-traumatic conditions, heart disease and hypertension, skin diseases, rheumatic diseases, obesity and diabetes. The children's facilities treat asthma, hay fever, chronic airway inflammation, type 1 diabetes, obesity, and heart and spine defects. The treatment centre on ul. Orkana, which serves all age groups, provides brine, carbonic, pearl and whirlpool baths, peat, underwater massage, individual and group inhalations, cryotherapy, laser, magnetotherapy, massage and therapeutic exercise. The programme is prescribed by a doctor.

Practical information

Rabka lies by the S7 expressway Kraków – Zakopane; Rabka-Zdrój railway station and neighbouring Chabówka have connections to Kraków. The pump room by the graduation tower in the Spa Park is open daily 10:00–18:00, the one in the treatment centre on ul. Orkana daily 9:00–16:00 (per the town); the graduation tower keeps the same hours as the park pump room. An hour is enough for the tower and pump room; allow half a day for the park and town.

Nearby: trails, peaks, sights

The Main Trail of Beskidy passes through Rabka, and the Rabka – Luboń and Raba Wyżna – Rabka trails start from the centre. The old wooden church a kilometre from the park houses the Władysław Orkan Museum in Rabka-Zdrój, and three kilometres away is the Chabówka Railway Open-Air Museum.

Official website: uzdrowisko-rabka.pl

Photos: Kraków - moje miasto, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons; Michał Bulsa, CC0, Wikimedia Commons; Jlns, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons; Mach240390, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons; Mach240390, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons; Zalasem1, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.