Salinental Valley, where salt is in the air

Between Bad Kreuznach and Bad Münster, you can find one graduation wall after another, standing 9 meters tall.

Europe's largest open air inhalatorium, the salt water comes from a 500m deep spring in Salinental valley, breathing in the salty air is very beneficial for your airways, bronchial tubes and skin, It is as if you are breathing the sea-side's refreshing salt.

Here the Nahe river winds through an impressive rock massif, salt was being extracted as much as 400 years ago.

The Nahe valley has numerous salt springs, the brine has a salt content of around 1.5% and for 27- years salt was extracted from it.

the extraction process required the salt content in the brine to be increased to 26% and the graduation walls were a vital step in this process.

in the 18th century, Baron Von Beust invented the salt extraction vital step in this process, it involves brine trickling down through blackthorn brushwood stacked in large frames (graduation walls), which resulted in the salt content bring increased by natural evaporation.

Using the waterwheels, the brine was pumped seven times to the top of these graduation walls so that it could slowly trickle down again. it took a week for the salt content to reach 15-20% the brine was then transferred to the boiling house where the salt was extracted

This method of treatment and therapy would have disappeared long ago if Dr Prieger hadn't discovered the medical properties of the salt springs in 1817.

People from all over Europe would visit and it had become one of the hotspots not only for tourists, but also its local residents as a form of therapy.

The Valley is located at Kurhausstraße 22-24, 55543 Bad Kreuznach, Germany.