Addresses how using water for relaxation intersects with ideas about class, gender, nationality and consumption. It explores the ways Europeans have turned to water for pleasure, relaxation and profit over the last 200 years as the enjoyment of free time developed from a privilege to a right.

Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Map of Europe 1 Introduction: The Pleasure of Taking the Waters Susan C. Anderson Collective Identities 2 Fashionable Spa Towns in Nineteenth-century Europe David Blackbourn 3 The Culture of the Water Cure in Nineteenth-century Austria, 1800@1914 Jill Steward 4 The Waters of San Sebastian: Therapy, Health, Pleasure and Identity, 1840@1936 John Walton 5 The Thrill of Frozen Water: Class, Gender and Ice-Skating in The Netherlands, 1600@1900 Jan Hein Furnee 6 The Finnish Sauna and Its Finnishness Pekka Leimu Aesthetics and Ideology 7 Seaside Visitors: Idlers, Thinkers and Patriots in Mid-nineteenth-century Britain Christiana Payne 8 A Sound Mind in a Sound Body: Bathing in Sweden Michelle Facos 9 The Ideological, Aesthetic and Ecological Significance of Water in Twentieth-century German Garden Design Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn 10 The Thermenpalast (Thermal Palace): An Outstanding German Water-leisure Project from the 1920s Gert Groning and Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn 11 Hungarian Spas Teresa Switzer Ecology and Economics 12 Water Recreation Resources and Environmental Pressures along Bulgaria's Black Sea Coast Vassil Marinov and Boian Koulov 13 Water and Leisure in Moldova: A Social Perspective Maria Vodenska 14 Water, Culture and Leisure: From Spas to Beach Tourism in Greece during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Margarita Dritsas 15 Rimini and Costa Smeralda: How Social Values Shape Recreational Sites Patrizia Battilani 16 Vacationing on France's Cote d'Azur, 1950@2000 Andre Rauch Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index

'This book reveals many fascinating historical perspectives It represents important reading in capturing and understanding the characteristics of past and present-day tourism.'Tourism 'this splendid collection of sixteen essays is extraordinarily broad...a refreshing contrast to the Anglo-centric nature of so much writing on tourism and leisure'International Journal of Maritime History