Wellness & leisure · 2026Sauna Ronneburg

Sauna Ronneburg is a family-run sauna in eastern Thuringia, open since December 1991: a Finnish sauna, a steam room, two infrared cabins, a cold plunge pool and a sauna garden with a heated pool. Pay once and stay as long as you like. The business lives on regulars and word of mouth. The website next to it had stood still for years and barely answered the one question new guests actually have: when are you open?

Before designing anything, we surveyed the old site as of 10 September 2026. The list describes that starting point, not today's site. None of it is a reproach to the owner.

• Before, the site ran on WordPress 5.8, without updates for years
• Before, it ran over HTTP; the installed certificate did not match the domain
• At 390 pixels wide the content ran past the edge of the screen
• Opening hours sat in a table that got cut off on a phone
• No directions, no map
• A cookie notice that covered half the page

Someone looking for a sauna decides in seconds, usually on a phone. So the structure hangs on a single question: are you open right now? The home page says so directly, and today is highlighted in the weekly overview. Everything else has its own page, so nobody has to search for long.

• Live status “We are open for you right now” on the home page
• Prices, phone and directions reachable without detours
• Separate pages for offers, sauna garden, prices, rules and first-timers
• The home page explains why the trip to Ronneburg is worth it

The visual language comes from the building itself: the garden at night, the pool, the cabins, the rest room. All photos of the business, no purchased pictures of other people's saunas. Add warm, dark tones with a copper accent and a serif for the headings. The typography stays large and calm, so the site also works for guests who are not holding reading glasses over a phone.

The new site no longer needs WordPress. It consists of eleven static pages that a small build script assembles from building blocks. No database to attack, no plugin chain to go stale. It is delivered via Firebase Hosting, over HTTPS only.

• No WordPress, no database, no plugins
• HTTPS throughout, with a valid certificate and HSTS
• Fonts served from the site itself, no requests to Google
• No analytics scripts and no cookie banner
• The OpenStreetMap map only loads after a click

At 390 pixels wide the old heading was cut off and the content ran off to the right. That is exactly where someone decides whether to call or keep scrolling. The new site is designed at this width first: on 18 September 2026, none of the pages we checked scrolled sideways at 390 pixels.

Closed days are shown as closed days, not as an empty row. Today is marked while the sauna is open. Both phone numbers are tappable on a phone. The directions mention the access road and parking. First-time guests find the sauna rules and a page of their own without having to call first.

The new site has been online at sauna-ronneburg.com since September 2026. What changes for the business, meaning visits, calls and the share of mobile traffic, we will write down here once we have measured for three months. Until then nothing stands here that we made up. That is our principle 01.