Do you like SPA tourism?

Don’t you feel guilty?

by Patrizio.

I never go to a SPA on purpose. That is, my wife drags me along to the SPA. She loves it, while my relation with hot mud baths and hot steam baths is quite cold. I mean, I like the atmosphere, the aristocratic and refined old style of SPA. SPA reminds me the ancient Romans, their history and traditions. It reminds me also geology: the rain that thousands years ago leaked in the mountains. The same water flows off the springs nowadays, riched in minerals.

Modern SPA centres can offer also diet programs, gymnastic and healthy treatments. They represent the quintessence of naturopathy. At a SPA, I often feel good because people really take care of me, but I don’t always feel comfortable: the whole attention focused on me, it force me directing my own attention to myself and to my body. I feel really guilty, because I don’t usually care much about my physical conditions. I mean, if I were a car, I would never change the oil and do the vehicle inspection. I would like to be an old Volvo from the 70s, that doesn’t need inspections or changes, but it just runs for kilometres. I have got some kind of balance, as long as it lasts.

You know, massages rocks my boat! I feel like massages could muddle all my organs and muscles up. I never worry about maintenance and this breaks my balance. I can’t find myself anymore. Not mentioning mud baths! For sure they are good for health, but they are also steaming and smelly! And what about inhalations? I feel like that they inevitably make you catch a cold. If I am convinced to work out, since I never do it, then I will be stiff all the week long.

Talking about food, health SPA centres don’t mean necessarily diet programs. Once again, my special attention to food makes me feel uncomfortable, because it emphasizes my bad habit to eat compulsively. In other words, SPA centres represent my own Jiminy Cricket, they lay me bare.

Saturnia and its giant cauliflowers

by Syusy

I love SPA centres! I like bathing in hot sulphur water warmed by the energy of a volcano, or in the mud baths where so many nude people steeped before. No more shame! There are many people who love SPA centre like I do, but this kind of tourism often reminds to something medical and therapeutic, instead of a source of pleasure.

People have always loved SPA, since the Etruscan age and then Roman age. Recently I spent a few days at Saturnia Thermal Baths: Roman soldiers used to stop here to regenerate themselves after battles. Nowadays there is a flow of 500 litres per second at a constant temperature of 37 degrees, so that water completely renews 4 times a day. This place made me aware again of Italian heritage and of our privilege in living here.

Saturnia stands in the Maremma hills and you can see the little white waterfalls directly from the main road. They are white because of the sediments of salts. It looks like Pamukkale, in Turkey, where I had the chance to admire the famous petrified calcium waterfalls. Saturnia waterfalls come from hot thermal water, flowing off a spring inside the Saturnia Thermal Baths Hotel. The hotel has just been restored and offers everything you may desire. Enjoy the outdoor thermal water pool, that can’t be covered because of the minerals. Maybe all those minerals are the reason why the cauliflowers cultivated here grow so much: the biggest cauliflowers I have ever seen!

The hotel is modern and surrounded by a 27 hectares golf green projected by a Californian designer for international competitions. I tried to play golf just once, I am not an expert, but I understand that this golf green is really appealing for tourism. In my travels, I’ve learnt how important is such high quality opportunities for tourists. Rich Chinese people are looking for luxury itineraries like this. And they are hundreds people!

 

The hotel gives you the opportunity to consult the nutritionist Daniela Morandi, student of master Sears, who invented Zone Diet. Daniela told me about her purpose to combine diet and haute cuisine. In her view, nutrition shouldn’t be just a strict control of calories which isn’t healty at all, but it first concerns biochemistry: sulphur water facilitates cellular renewal, while selected food can help inflammations. This is the right way to slow down ageing: you have to preserve motor and mental abilities, instead of worrying about wrinkles!

What does it mean “feeling good”? Are we able to listen to ourselves? Let’s do it and we will know how to really feel good. SPA centres give you this chance, in touch with nature! Isn’t it great?