SPA GODDESS
EACH ISSUE, LEO BEAR WRAPS
HERSELF IN A TOWELLING ROBE TO ROAD-TEST THE LATEST LUXURY SPA OFFERINGS ACROSS THE GLOBE
SPA REVIEW: ➣ GSTAAD PALACE, SWITZERLAND
The Gstaad Palace is one of Switzerland’s grandest hotels. Family run for three generations, it has history and glamour in spades. No wonder fur-clad fashionistas and their fiercely handsome ski-beaus flock here for the winter season. Forget Christmas and New Year, you won’t get a room, but visit in autumn and you can have the slopes – and more importantly, the spa – all to yourselves. The Palace Spa is a deeply sensual cavernous space with eight treatment rooms, separate steam/sauna areas for men and women, a hammam and solarium. Fifty tons of granite was trucked in from the Blausee region to create a snaking wall of rock that dissects the spa area, lending dramatic earthiness and a strong sense of place. Snuggled on a fur-strewn sofa next to a fire pit, I was practically purring. The communal chill-out areas are certainly lovely, but the spa’s pièce de résistance is a steaming swim- in/swim-out hydrotherapy pool heated to a pulse- racing 35C. With jets strong enough to wind you, there is no better way to soak up the surroundings – towering snow-clad mountains and clean bright Swiss skies. Spa heaven.
When it comes to pampering, there’s a wide choice
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
of treatments from French beauty lines Cinq Mondes, Sisley and Clé de Peau Beauté, but it’s the high-tech Brazilian Ivo Pitanguy oxygen-based treatments that
many return for – it’s basically botox for wimps. MUST-HAVE TREATMENT: Ivo Pitanguy Oxygen Intense
Treatment (55 minutes; €415). WOW FACTOR: Ask for a tower suite in the hotel and you’ll be able to take a bath in a turret just like
a princess. INSIDER TIP: Madonna loves the private hammam.
PALACE.CH
WHAT A RUSH
Responding to its growing popularity with the Russian market, Spa Le Bristol by La Prairie has introduced a list of Russian spa treatments. It is the only spa in Paris with a ‘baniya’ – traditional Russian wet room – and now offers a traditional treatment called ‘veniks’ whereby bundles of birch branches are used to stroke, rub and lash the skin following a steam bath. Ouch! The ‘From Russia with Love’ package includes use of a VIP room and private terrace, as well as vodka cocktails and caviar canapés. I
reckon they’ll need the vodka.
LEBRISTOLPARIS.COM
30 — aspire september 2014
SPA GODDESS
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