Rimske Toplice, Laško
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Rimske Toplice (literally 'Roman Spas' in Slovenian) is a small town in the Municipality of Laško, Slovenia. At 213 meters above sea level, the town is situated in a minor valley along the Savinja River along the Celje–Zidani Most–Ljubljana road. The valley of Rimske Toplice is surrounded by wooded slopes of the nearby mountains, providing shelter against wind and summer heat and supporting rich vegetation of exotic plants from all over the world. These include giant sequoias, Canadian hemlocks, Japanese hloes, cypresses and Californian cedars. The town's is also the birthplace of the Slovenian poet Anton Aškerc.
[edit] Thermal spas
The healing power of natural springs was valued by the Romans. As early as 39 B.C. they invented first basins with warm, hot and cold water. They have enjoyed the benefits and healing power on the right bank of the Savinja River where there are still thermal springs under Stražnik (655 m), rising from triassic dolomite rock cracks in Rimske Toplice (Roman Spas). Monuments and sacrificial altars devoted to goddesses and nymphs as thanksgiving for the convalescence of ancient quests, found between 1769 and 1845, provide evidence of this.
The first mention of the spas was found in the Aquilea Document dated 1486; the spas were owned by Habsburgs for 30 years and then by the Counts of Celje (1456) together with the Laško Estate.
Through history the baths owners changed numerous times. The first turnabout in the spa’s history was in 1840, when the former wholesale merchant from Trieste Gustav Adolf Uhlich bought the spas in the name of his wife Amalia because he was healed with the healing power of the thermal water there. This was when what had been a modest health resort was turned into the modern spas and given the name Rimske Toplice ('Roman Spas'). For the need of the spa, two large wells were regulated and named Amalia's Spring (38.4 °C) and Roman Spring (36.3 °C). With the erection of the Sophia Manor, the number of rooms increased from 38 to 100 at first and then to more than 200. On the even plateau with a chestnut tree promenade there was a Spa Church on one side and an Orchestra Pavilion on the other side. In the afternoon the orchestra played out in the open, on evenings in the Spa salon. There was a billiard room, a tennis court in a nearby wood and on a steep meadow a roofed bowling alley. Because the Vienna–Trieste railroad passed Rimske Toplice after 1848; more guests visited the place, all of them better-off people from Trieste, Hungary, Zagreb, or even the United States. Most of them were Germans from all over the monarchy. A sensation for all of them was the visit of the British princess and Prussian heiress Victoria, who stayed in Rimske Toplice in 1879, using it as starting point for pleasure trips in the neighbourhood. The most distinguished guests had the habit of planting exotic trees in the spa’s park, so even nowadays you can see huge sequoias, Canadian hemlocks, Japanese hloes, cypresses, Californian cedars and other interesting species.
Russian prisoners of war built a 2 km promenade through the forest (The Roman Path) during the 1st World War. Open thermal baths from 1931 were an important achievement. During the 2nd World War the Spa was occupied by wounded German soldiers and the owner (a member of the Uhlich family) and his family moved away at the end of the war.
After that the Yugoslav Peoples' Army used the spa for healing and rehabilitation of its soldiers. The spas have never been fully utilized by common Slovenian people. Although the Uhlich Family were good masters and turned the humble bath into spas of world reputation, they dominating over the local population. Also when Yugoslav Peoples' Army managed the spas, they were more or less inaccessible to the local people.
From 1991 onwards, after the Yugoslav Peoples' Army left, attempts were made to revive Rimske Toplice. Finally, on 17th November 2005 the thermal spas once again opened their doors to guests, with the Medical Rehabilitation Centre aiding the revival of the town's fortunes.
