Spa towns have long been overshadowed by urban history research: too small, too idyllic and oscillating in their importance. A comparative perspective on spa towns quickly reveals that they were extremely complex, even contradictory places of nascent tourism. Spa towns settled in the field of tension between rural idyll and urban modernity or between renunciation and abundance: Kneipp cures stood next to lavish theater evenings, rich industrialists next to poor bath visitors. This type of city was considered an experimental field for urban modernity, where one soon found centralized slaughterhouses, photographers and telegraphs. Spa towns were also places of political conflict, emerging racism and xenophobia.