Our verdict on a “wellness break” at Palazzo Fiuggi near Rome …
How do you want to feel when you return from a trip away? Increasingly, the focus is on coming home healthier. Instead of facing the return flight with sunburn and a hangover, “wellness” breaks mean you come home feeling calmer, rested and a little lighter (in every sense). Palazzo Fiuggi Wellness Medical Retreat, an hour’s transfer from Rome airport, is a world-renowned hotel and spa set on 19 acres of private park. Oprah rates it as her favourite spa in the world; Gwyneth is apparently a regular, too.
The mineral-rich waters here have drawn people to Fiuggi for centuries. The celebrated mineral waters, Acqua di Fiuggi, are famed for their unique healing properties. The Palazzo, once a holiday home for the Italian royal family, and visited by everyone from Picasso to Sophia Loren, is private, peaceful and with an informal, relaxed atmosphere.
You’ll see a roster of doctors and experts to design a bespoke programme, which can be focused around sleep, detox, fitness or weight-loss, 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 other activities can include hiking in the surrounding mountains, high in the crystal-clear air, and biohacking sessions. Any treatment or experience focussed on health and longevity is available here – with bells on.
There are various indoor and outdoor pools – I had the enormous Art Deco pool to myself the entire few days I visited (it’s slightly chilled, and exhilaratingly beautiful), where I imagine previous Palazzo visitors such as Picasso doing his best breaststroke. Another pool looks out over the hillside town, a triangle of buildings the faded colours of Neapolitan ice cream. You spend a lot of time going from hot to cold here, with the salt room, stream and infrared sauna as well as icy plunge pools. All the facilities are exceptional. The Palazzo has the most glamorous, high-tech gym I’ve ever seen, in the enormous light-filled Ballroom.
Italy without wine, pasta, ice cream, coffee? Sounds like torture. But actually, the food here is another draw. Forget any fears of cabbage soup and dry bread: legendary three-Michelin-star chef Heinz Beck of Rome’s La Pergola has designed menus tailored to suit the various health programmes, from Detox to Longevity. His philosophy is “food as medicine”: this means hugely inventive meals that balance your gut and yet are fantastically good, made more piquant by the restrictions – no alcohol, caffeine, dairy, meat, carbs … Each meal starts with a ginger shot, plus plenty of Fiuggi water, of course.
You’re looked after by the fantastically professional and warm staff who are clearly expert in dealing with insanely challenging and demanding people. The people-watching everywhere is quite something, from off-duty models to spoiled oligarchs. Many are fasting – it’s a popular spot for discreet medical procedures.
Days pass in a haze of clear soup, mineral-rich water and floating in muddy waters. This Thalassotherapy is amazing – you float in a pool of buoyant minerals and mud the colour of Augustus Gloop’s chocolate fountain. The liquid feels silky and strange like it’s filled with seaweed oils.
My favourite experience was Paolo’s “meditation session”, which turns out to be a group sauna and soundbath experience. Paolo, topless with a towel round his waist, dark-rimmed glasses in place, throws ice balls infused with essential oils onto the sauna and proceeds to waft a towel around in matador fashion, wafting the warm fragrant air at us. To the soundtrack of The Script. Since we’ve only heard classical music (restaurant) and spa music (everywhere else) for days, the music is a bit of shock. When he starts to chuck bits of ice at us all, we all start laughing – it’s fantastically eccentric and hilarious, yet also strangely moving (things do feel different when you’re in an intense caffeine and sugar deficit).
The main transformation is your mindset – days of focusing on nothing but your body and mind can be life-changing. People come here to heal, take time out or convalesce – and they return. While it’s obviously a challenge to maintain the benefits once you’re home, and no longer have a programme to follow (or personal chef), Palazzo Fiuggi has the expertise to instil some lasting good habits. And if you’re investing in a holiday, it makes sense that you’re investing in your health and sense of wellbeing, too. If I win the Lotto, I’m coming here every year.
Healing Holidays can arrange a three-night Wellness Break from €2,999 per person sharing, including transfers, full-board accommodation and programme; five nights from €4,599.
