How do you want to feel when you return from a holiday? …
Increasingly, the focus is on coming home healthier. It’s not optimal to face the return flight with sunburn and a hangover: wellness trips mean you come home feeling calmer, rested and a little lighter (in every sense). Palazzo Fiuggi, an hour’s drive from Rome airport, is a wellness medical spa set on 19 acres that Oprah rates as her favourite spa in the world; Gwyneth is a regular, too. But it’s not just for celebs: the mineral-rich waters here have drawn people to Fiuggi for centuries.
Apart from the exceptional spa facilities (including a vast Art Nouveau outdoor pool), the food is undoubtedly a draw; legendary chef Heinz Beck of Rome’s La Pergola has designed menus to suit the various health programmes, from Detox to Longevity. His philosphy is “food as medicine”: this means hugely inventive meals that balance your gut and yet delight. Programmes can be focused around sleep or menopause, and take a holistic view on physical and mental wellbeing. Daily thalassotherapy sessions – floating in silky mineral and mud-rich thermal waters – are a highlight, while activities include hiking in the surrounding mountains, high in the crystal-clear air, and biohacking sessions.
Don’t miss Paolo’s delightfully eccentric group sauna and soundbath experience – it’s both hilarious and strangely moving (things feel different when you’re in an intense caffeine and sugar deficit). The Palazzo, once a holiday home for the Italian royal family, and visited by everyone from Picasso to Sophia Loren, has the most glamorous, high- tech and vast gym I’ve ever seen, in the light-filled Ballroom.
You can also, naturally, add on a wide range of treatments. But the main transformation is your mindset – days of focusing on nothing but your body and mind can be life-changing. No wonder people come here to heal and convalesce; and they return. Healing Holidays can arrange a three-night Wellness Break from €2,499 per person sharing, including transfers, full board accommodation and programme; five nights from €3,899.
SAUNA EXPERIENCE AT BALLYNAHINCH CASTLE
Closer to home, saunas are popping up everywhere, but our favourite is in Connemara: Ballynahinch Castle now has two picturesque saunas by the lake. Drive a golf buggy through the trees, and discover the cosy huts, which look like something from The Hobbit. Soak up the heat and mountain views, and brace yourself for cold bucket pulls and serene dips in the lake.
A basket with towels, water and a map is provided. It’s a fun, wholesome activity that makes you feel glowing, invigorated and at peace with the world: this is forest bathing at its finest. Indulge in Ballynahinch’s “Stillness and Sanctuary” package, combining the sauna experience with an overnight stay and (fantastically good) dinner, from €267 per person. You’ll sleep and relax so well in this friendly, peaceful sanctuary that you’ll return home entirely restored. Unless you overdo it on barman David’s masterful cocktails, that is.
SEE MORE: Saunas With Panoramic Views, Lakes And Yurts Around Ireland
