ELISENBRUNNEN - FOUNTAINS OF ELISABETH

Alongside the famous cathedral, Elisenbrunnen is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Aix-la-Chapelle. She bears the name of the heir princess Elisabeth Ludovika von Bayern. Built in classical style, it served as a representation to show the well-developed culture of the spa and bathing in the city. Indeed, with its many springs of thermal water, Aix-la-Chapelle was already recognized as a seaside town in Roman times. For centuries it has been an important and popular destination for the curists. Emperor Charlemagne would definitely have settled his residence in Aix-la-Chapelle mainly because of the beneficial effects of thermal baths, heated naturally by the volcanoes of the Eifel. The Elisabeth fountain was completed in 1827 and is still on Friedrich-Wilhelm Platz. However, today's pump room is a reconstruction since the first was almost completely destroyed by bombs during World War II. The fountain consists of an opening hall with a portico with columns and two adjacent flags on the left and right. The mineral water springs from two fountains at a temperature of 52 ° C. The water, very sulfurous, creates in the pump room the well known smell of rotten eggs. It is said that sulfur water has special curative properties, and bathing or drinking it can apparently help to cure a wide range of different diseases. However, because of its content, water can no longer be drained at the fountain, since the water of a special chemical composition can now only be drunk under the supervision of a doctor. The park around the monument, the Elisengarten, was conceived between 1852 and 1854 by the famous Prussian landscape artist Peter Joseph Lenné. You can see, on marble plates inside the rotunda, the names of the famous visitors.