Bad Kötzting: Culture, Spa Park and AQACUR

Bad Kötzting offers a range of starting points for planning your trip: the spa park, hiking trails, cultural traditions, exhibitions and AQACUR Badewelt. If you’re looking for a hotel for your stay, first consider which of these topics interest you most. This will help you plan your time there around your own priorities.

Spa Park and Hiking Trails

Bad Kötzting Spa Park is the largest park in the Upper Palatinate. The starting point for Bad Kötzting’s hiking trails is the car park on Ludwigstraße by the spa park. Orientation and information boards there provide details about hiking and themed trails. This gives you a clear starting point for choosing a route before setting out: first consult the information on site and plan your hike around the themed trails on offer.

The Pentecost Procession and Its History

The Kötzting Pentecost Procession is one of Europe’s largest mounted intercessory processions and dates back to a vow made in 1412. Every year on Whit Monday, around 700 riders on decorated horses and dressed in traditional costumes make their way through the Zellertal Valley to Steinbühl in prayer. In 2015, the Pentecost Procession was included in the Bavarian State Register of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

The Pentecost Procession Museum in Bad Kötzting’s church fortress is dedicated to the equestrian pilgrimage and its history. The late-medieval fortification includes a cemetery, church and castle. Using historical objects and an extensive collection of materials, the museum documents the almost 600-year history of the equestrian pilgrimage and the symbolic Pentecost wedding that follows it. This allows you to view the procession and its historical portrayal as two distinct ways of exploring this cultural topic.

Theatre and Exhibitions

The Bad Kötzting Forest Festival Theatre adapts literary classics into the Bavarian dialect, bringing them to a wide audience. This dialect theatre adds its own cultural touch alongside the religious tradition of the Pentecost Procession. Individual productions and dates are seasonal. So if you’d like to plan your stay around a performance, check the specific dates in advance.

The exhibitions also cover a range of topics. “Fascination Universe” spans two floors and takes visitors on a journey through the universe with large-format images, films and exhibits. “Satellite Geodesy and Navigation,” by contrast, traces the development of satellite navigation systems, from the American NNSS of the 1960s through GPS to Europe’s GALILEO. One exhibition focuses on the universe, while the other explores how satellite navigation has evolved.

AQACUR and Regional Cycling Tours

AQACUR Badewelt Bad Kötzting has a 25 m-long sports pool. Its sauna area includes a vitality sauna, steam sauna, Finnish sauna, herbal sauna, Banja log-cabin sauna and crystal sauna, as well as a brine steam bath, a graduation tower, whirlpool, refreshment and foot baths, an ice fountain, sauna garden, relaxation rooms and a fireplace. This gives you two different options to consider when planning: a sports pool and a well-equipped sauna area.

If you’re also considering cycling tours in the wider region during your stay, the Upper Bavarian Forest Nature Park around Bad Kötzting offers more than 30 routes. They offer a way to get to know the region and its people, as well as its culture and traditions. The routes are located in the wider area; it’s worth checking the latest tour information before planning.

Discover more destinations: Weiding, Waffenbrunn, Schorndorf, Lohberg, Runding, Miltach, Gleißenberg, Rettenbach.

For the overview of the wider region: Cham.