‘Get undressed, or get out’: Here, it’s normal to get naked with colleagues

Forget all that nonsense about the Scandinavians and the Germans and their propensity for getting their kit off in public; it’s the Austrians who have taken the art of nudity to a whole new level.

In Austrian spas, bathing suits are strictly taboo.Credit: Jamie Brown

I became convinced of this when two members of our travel group were turfed out of a five-star Austrian hotel spa for the sin of … wearing clothing. And we’re talking swimsuits here, not a three-piece suit and a trilby. The women were agog, and not a little indignant, at being told to get undressed or get out.

Putting aside the question of the identity of the nude dobber, I put on my investigative reporter hat and headed to the scene of the “crime”.

Personally, I have nothing against getting my kit off with a bunch of strangers – one of my early travel stories was about a fascinating and somewhat startling weekend spent in a nudist camp on the NSW coast – so off I popped, discarding clothing as I went, reporter hat included.

The WaldSpa in the Naturhotel Forsthofgut in Leogang, just south of Salzburg, is small but perfectly formed, with family-friendly “textile” and adults-only “textile-free” (textilfrei in the local lingo) areas where you can work up a sweat or swim while admiring the grandeur of the surrounding mountains.

It was empty when I got there, so I stripped down and sat on one of the wooden benches. It was a little disconcerting at first if I’m honest – what if I’d misread the signs (schoolboy German will only get you so far) and I was hanging out (as it were) in the wrong section? I wasn’t, as proved by the man and woman who came in shortly afterwards, as naked as the day they were born. Phew, I was in the right place and could relax.

That night at dinner in a traditional Hutessen restaurant (where you DIY-cook strips of meat by throwing them against what is essentially an upright brazier) a young Austrian public relations woman explained that she happily went to spas/saunas with colleagues (male and female) after a day at the office or at a conference.

It was just a way of life, a social ritual about as controversial as going for a cheeky beer after work. Which is when it hit me; I have nothing against getting my clothes off with a bunch of strangers – after all, I’m never going to see them again – but I wondered if, when it came to friends and colleagues, would I feel different? Not so this young Austrian woman, who looked at me like I was a crazy old stick-in-the-mud. What, your work colleagues haven’t seen you naked?

Which is why I found myself a few days later in an amphitheatre-like textilfrei sauna of the Alpin Resort Sacher wellness hotel, listening to a Saunameister – yes, it’s a thing – explain the various spa rituals such as using aromatherapy infusions on the coals, and how to twirl towels to circulate hot air and increase heat.

The hotel, at Seefeld in the Tyrol just south of the German border, has a large spa with an expansive textile section and a smaller, but no less impressive, textilfrei area with its own plunge pool and outdoor section.

Among the crowd were several people I “knew” if only to see around the hotel, but none of my closer colleagues turned up to test my attitude to seeing them naked. Or maybe they just baulked at seeing me naked.

Anyway, when the Saunameister took us outside and made us rub handfuls of ice all over our bodies, I wished I was one of them and had stayed in the bar.

I did, however, learn some German that day, when the chap next to me turned to his friend and said: “Ich weiss nicht, was der Australier trägt, aber es muss gebügelt werden*.”

*“I don’t know what the Australian is wearing, but it needs ironing.”