Shari Mycek
  • Home
  • About Me
  • My Work
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Store
  • Home
  • About Me
  • My Work
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Store

My words stem from the heart...

Morning Hay Therapy

5/24/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture

by shari mycek

At exactly 6:03 a.m., I opened my eyes to see Anita, a tall, lanky woman in white pants and sun-yellow shirt, standing over my bed at Steigenberger hotel Der Sonnenhof, a property in Bad Worishofen, Germany - a small Bavaria town known for its Kneipp water cures. Little known in the U.S.  Kneipp water therapy uses warm and cold water  to increase circulation, improve lymphatic function, reduce headaches and promote overall wellness. Spas, hospitals, as well as outdoor parks feature the long, water-filled troughs, used for stepping (feet) and soaking (arms).

The night before, the spa staff had advised me of the delivery of the hay pack – a warm linen sack filled with approximately 20 steamed grasses, flowers, and herbs including chamomile, St. John’s Wort, and sage – so I would not be startled by the early morning visitor.
Picture
Picture
The ritual is common in hotel spas all over Bad Worishofen, as it's believed that in the early morning, the body, in its quiet state, is better able to receive the healing properties of the warm, herb-infused flowers and hay. After placing the fragrant bundle under my shoulder blades and tightening the blankets around me, Anita slipped out of my room.  And breathing in the fresh, hay-and-herb-scent, I drifted back to sleep. 

Forty-five minutes later, Anita returned to remove the hay pack - then guided me to the spa to begin the Kneipp ritual of soaking arms - then feet -  in troughs of warm, followed by  ice-cold water.
0 Comments

Equine-Spa Connection: Salamander Resort & Spa

5/13/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture

by shari mycek

Only a half-hour outside Washington DC, the terrain was already beginning to feel like ‘home.’ The rolling hills, wooden-fence-remnants from the Civil War battlefields, the faint scent of honeysuckle, and the horses, one rolling joyously on its back, soaking up the first rays of summer, were infused-in-my-veins familiar. I grew up in these parts, not far from the Mason-Dixon line.
Picture
Picture
My driver, of course, has no idea (his assumption, I learn later, is that I’m from California), and so I revel in his tales of the area. “Jackie Kennedy had a horse farm (Glen Ora) here, and used to leave the White House to come out here and ride,” he tells me. “And of course, some of Virginia’s best wineries are right here. Be sure to try the sparkling wine. First Lady Michelle Obama loves it. She loves The Salamander too, she’s visited several times, comes for the spa.”

My plan exactly.
Picture
Despite my intense familiarity with this rolling-hill, horse-wine countryside, it is always spa – no matter where I am in the world –  I feel truly  ‘at home.’ And The Salamander Resort & Spa proves no exception. Immediately upon entering the hotel, amidst the cozy burning fireplaces, and women in slim jeans and high boots heading to brunch, I smell it. Sensually fragrant. The intoxicating blend of jasmine and citrus. Spa. And within minutes of checking into my room,  I'm headed to the spa's Moroccan-inspired rasul, for a red flower treatment, in a ceramic-domed steam chamber. 
Picture



Picture
At Salamander, the rasul is a translation of the traditional hammam experience, which has roots in northern Africa and is part of everyday life. A communal experience, the traditional hammam serves as a place where locals socialize, gossip and connect, while steaming, purifying, scrubbing and cleansing their bodies. Salamander’s version – completely private – is a self-applied treatment and my attendant carefully explains each ingredient and detail before quietly exiting. For the first few minutes, while the chamber is still cool, I slather onto arms, legs, torso, buttocks and back, the beautifully textured red flower clay, also fragrantly jasmine. I then sit, listening to the soft hissing of pipes, as the chamber fills with hot steam – opening pores, detoxifying, hydrating and remineralizing my skin.
​

​Warmly cocooned from the steam and beautifully fragrant, I make my way next  onto a massage table for an hour-long, deep-work-to-my-warmed muscles massage, before staggering to my room where I collapse onto a cloud or duvet softness. Opting out of a formal dinner, I instead order in room service – a kale salad, locally sourced, with a glass of sparkly white Virginia wine – staying blissfully in robe and slippers. Home again. South of the Mason-Dixon.
(Salamander Resort & Spa is located in Middleburg, Virginia - only 40 minutes from Washington DC).

ChatSnap: Sheila Johnson, Owner

Picture
Over tea and vegan sandwiches in the library of The Salamander Resort & Spa, founder and CEO Sheila Johnson, her skin glowing and eyes bright, shares her vision in creating the resort. During her marriage, she cofounded and helped build BET (Black Entertainment Television), but in the years following her divorce (and subsequent sale of BET), wanted to do ‘something meaningful.’ And all by herself.
 
In 2005, she founded Salamander Hotels & Resorts, which now includes properties in Florida, North Carolina and Virginia. It was her daughter, an accomplished equestrian, who led her to Middleburg. But it was Sheila’s own deep passion for healing that led her to create Salamander, which she says represents “fortitude, courage and perseverance.’
 
During the first days and months of her divorce, Johnson admits spending days ‘walking, crying, screaming. Trying to figure out who I was – as a woman, an individual. And what I was going to do now. I started moving forward by focusing on myself, what I wanted and needed. And I never looked back. Now, I’d like to help others find that same power within themselves – to come to a place where the stress evaporates and where they reconnect by themselves.”
 
Johnson identifies three core pieces of the Salamander experience – the spa, the horses and the cooking school – each connected one to the other.​
Picture
Picture
“Horses can sense your fear, if you’re relaxed, if you want to be around them,” says Johnson. “They’re watching you and you can see your reflection through them. This is what our [horse program] takes you through. In working with the horses, you begin to understand what you’re all about.”
 
Inside the spa, Johnson says she personally is drawn to the ‘touch points’ – massage, heat, steam. But everyone’s connection is different. “Everyone comes out with different stories of what helped.”
 
The final piece, the cooking school, is a passion of Johnson’s – a vegan. Inside the open-kitchen, glassed area, guests can participate in healthy cooking demonstration, share in recipes and sample both local and international wines.
 
“Salamander is about connecting to one’s inner self – be it through the horses, the spa treatments, the cuisine or combinations of,” says Johnson. “There are some who will never go near the barn, want nothing to do with the horses, but will connect in the spa. While others find their connection in the horses and others, the kitchen. Salamander is not a hotel, it’s a place where people feel at home, however ‘home’ is defined.”
​
0 Comments

Italy's New Thermalism

5/10/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture

by shari mycek

Tall, bronze, David-esque men flanked by curvaceously chic women (a few with babies on their hips) mill about in cushy white robes eating oranges and sipping sparkling thermal water inside the sleek, modern lobby of Adler Thermae Spa & Wellness Resort in Tuscany, Italy. A scene unfamiliar to the United States, it’s new even to Europe. And called “New Thermalism."
 
For certain, the sexy, 30-somethings congregated here are a far cry from the elderly in-search-of-a-cure crowd long associated with Tuscan spas. Ask any local in this land of rolling clay hills, towering cedars and olive groves about the region’s famed thermal waters, and they’ll pinpoint specific spa towns and their medicinal properties: Chinaciano, “spa town for the liver and digestion;” Saturnia, “famous for its muds; good for the joints,” and Bagno Vignoni, home to Adler Thermae, for “skin [dermatitis, eczema] and bones.”

While the healing properties of Bagno Vignoni’s warm bubbly waters – first discovered by the Etruscans and revived by the Romans – still hold true today, people come to Adler Thermae not for cure, but for relaxation and overall wellbeing.

“Adler Thermae is a new kind of spa,” says my therapist, Raffaella, while packing thick, coffee-colored thermal mud onto my back and shoulders, and then lowering me into a warm, cocooning water bed. "Our thermal waters are known to heal the skin, but this spa is about relaxation and friends and family spending time together. It’s nice.”

Picture
The idea to create a wellness versus “cure” spa took root nearly two decades ago when brothers Andreas and Klaus Sanoner vacationed in Bagno Vignoni. No stranger to the hotel world, the Sanoner family has owned Hotel Adler Sport & Wellness Resort in the Dolomites since 1810 and was first in the Alps to introduce steam and sauna facilities (in the 1970s). But in Bagno Vignoni’s natural waters, the Sanoner brothers saw opportunity to create a different type of retreat, complete with treatments, steam circuit, fitness facility, kids’ club and (then-new to Italy) yoga and Pilates classes. Their vision came around the same time the Italian government stopped paying for thermal-water cures – prompting greater scrutiny by spa-goers as to the quality and caliber of their spa experiences. More than 70 percent of guests are repeats.
Lounging godlike – a white-and-yellow-striped sauna towel draped casually around his neck – Roberto, a businessman from northern Sardinia, says he’s here for the second time with his wife and 12-year-old daughter. 

"
This trip, my daughter tried the fango mud and she’s hooked,” says Roberto. “Spas are becoming big in Italy and there’s a real drive among men, especially, to take care of their bodies, their faces, their health. Italian men want to look and feel good.”

Another male guest tells me, as we exit the steam room, that it’s his fifth visit. “I come down from Florence on the weekends to relax, unwind,” he says. “Which (aside from its perfectly chiseled clientele) is the true beauty of this spa. Once checked into your room, you can pad leisurely in robe and slippers from salt cave to the famous outdoor thermal waters – stopping to rest on comfy waterbed chaises in the glassed, two-story, relaxation area overlooking ancient travertine stone.
Picture
For a few euros, add on a Dead Sea-salt bath and float blissfully in an underground grotto. Or bake in the Argillae, an Etruscan steam and clay bath.

 “It looks like gelato,” I say to my therapist, Claudia.

“Not gelato – mud,” she responds, laughing. She’s holding out a tray containing three bowels – one filled with salt; another oil; and the last with four perfectly rounded white, yellow, brown and black scoops.

 “The white, very soft, is for your face; brown, arms and legs; yellow, for stomach and back; and the black, a very hard mud, for elbows, knees and soles of your feet,” she says.
 
After slathering the appropriate mud on the appropriate body parts, she instructs me to slow back in the misty steam room, soft twinkling lights shifting from blue to red to purple above me. After several rounds of steam with light show, a bell sounds – my signal to apply the coarse salt, as a scrub, to my elbows, knees and feet. A warm shower follows, topped with an application of soybean and sunflower oils.
 
Picture
While it’s possible never to leave the Aqua steam circuit, doing so is highly recommended - to visit the resident spa doctor who offers clinical assessments in nutrition and fitness, along with unusual offerings like Mediterranean Medicine, a practice dating back 2,000 years to when ancients used the sun to ‘read’ facial laugh lines and wrinkles to detect illness. And for treatments. Thermal mud treatments, locally inspired massages and wraps (containing olive oil, grapes, sheep’s milk and honey) and cellulite therapies (European women swear by them) are all widely popular. As are the spa’s Ayurveda offerings.

When I finally scrape myself off the massage table, following a two-hour Kerala massage,  ending with a tent of swirling lavender-scented steam, the temptation to skip dinner and sleep through the night is huge. But I dutifully rise, dress and head to the spa’s candlelit dining room for a feast of shepherd’s cheese, plump pasta, artichokes, fresh fish and wine from nearby Montepulciano. I am in Tuscany, after all
0 Comments

Baden-Baden's Friedrichsbad Still in Vogue

5/6/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture

by shari mycek

 In its heyday, Baden-Baden was the place to see and be seen. Europe’s upwardly aspiring bourgeoisie would flock to the German town for month-long kurs, drink the magically curative waters and parade in finery along the promenade. While the scene has changed since the baths were opened in 1877, Baden-Baden and its historic Friedrichsbad public baths (a combination of hot-and-cold pools, thermal steam rooms and warm-to-hot air baths) are still very much in vogue.
Picture
Picture

​A bit shy, I booked myself for a `women-only’ circuit (3 hours, 16 stations), which turned out to be a good idea, as the napkin-sized towel given upon entrance was taken away at station five. There, a female attendant put a scrub brush to my skin with memorable authority, cleansing and preparing my body for the next chamber, a dome-shaped, eucalyptus thermal steam room. Most unforgettable, though, was the finish: in a darkened circular room filled with communal beds, I was wrapped womblike in down-soft blankets for a restful, 30-minute slumber.



0 Comments

Sea Oil and Sorcery: Sardinia's Longevity Secret

5/4/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture

by shari mycek

Picture
“It’s the diet. The buttery pork, the shepherd’s cheese, the gelato,” says Gaby Weissman, my German-born tour guide, who’s lived on Sardinia for decades, attempting to explain why so many people in Sardinia than elsewhere in the world, live to be 100 years and older.
 
Popping an olive into her mouth, as we dine in a tiny Cagliari restaurant, she eyes her debate opponent – driver and Sardinian-born friend Carlo Pia, a stocky man with jet-black hair who’s shaking his head in disagreement. Longevity doesn’t come from the cuisine, Carlo is saying. But from the wine, the sea, the work.

​“Sardinians drink one glass of fine red wine a day. They swim every day in the sea. And they never, never stop working. All day long, in the open air and by the sea, Sardinians fish, tend to their sheep. Their lives are peaceful. Of course, I will die young,” he sighs, gingerly touching the pocket of his tailored black suit jacket. “I’m like the Americans. Always in my car. Driving, driving. Yesterday I started smoking – from all the stress.” He flashes a pack of Marlboro as proof.
 
Sorry Carlo, but at least one car-owning American doesn’t believe driving along stunning sea and jagged coastline on an island with more sheep (4.5 million) than people (1.8 million) is even remotely stressful.
 
He laughs. “Excuse me, I must smoke now. I’m very, very stressed.” As he exits the restaurant, shaking hands, slapping shoulders in greeting, he looks happy, relaxed,  joyous even. The look is common across this gorgeously craggy island about 125 miles off the northern coast of Italy.
 
Shaped like a loaf of ciabatta and dense with cork groves, millennia-old olive trees, pink flamingos sunning on one leg, and brilliant red poppies dancing among ancient Roman ruins, Sardinia – thought by some to be the lost Atlantis – is the very picture of tranquility.
 
It’s here that stressed-out Italians come to escape the urban frenzy; here that Europe’s yachting set descends in sensual appreciation of the bluest of blue Mediterranean waters, and here that European football teams (that’s soccer to us) come to recuperate in the salty thalassotherapy pools at Thermae del Forte spa.​

Gaby leans closer now, pouring more wine. “No worries,” she laughs. “We’re not driving. Now, do you want to know the real reason Sardinians live so long? It’s the megere, Good witches," she translates.  Always female, megere are “chosen” at a young age by a female elder (mother, aunt, grandmother) to carry out their practice. Most villages have at least one and the “real” ones never take money for their work.
 
“Could I meet with a megera?” I ask, eagerly.
 
Outside, overhearing our conversation, Carlo hastily stamps out his cigarette and confesses that his grandmother was a megera. “As a boy I used to hide under the kitchen table from her.” No, he cannot drive us to see her. He smiles. Ah, but yes, he can drive us to Pula – a nearby town of winding cobblestone streets where crisp laundry airs between colorful houses, and fresh figs and sun-dried tomatoes are for sale under the shades of umbrellas.
Picture
One man in Pula is 105,” Carlos informs. “Another is 110. I am certain we will find a megera.” Two cell phone calls later, speaking in local Sardinian dialect (something closer to Spanish than modern Italian), he stops on a pedestrian-filled street. “I’m told there is a woman, Madam Loi, who lives near here, and does this work you want.” A passerby points us to a narrow yellow house with lace panel curtains.
 
Madam Adele Loi, a 60-something woman with brown eyes, auburn hair and dangling earrings, opens the door, places a hand to her heart, then ushers us into a cramped dining room strewn with lace doilies and filled with framed photos and religious statuettes. She pulls out a wooden chair, gesturing for me to sit, then speaks rapidly to Gaby.
 
“She asks if you sleep in the Hotel Castello,” Gaby interprets.
 
“Tell her yes.”
Picture
Hotel Costello sits within the sprawling, 55-acre Forte Village Resort. The expansive resort complex is like a small town, offering eight hotels, the Thermae del Forte spa, an eight-pin bowling alley, an outdoor ice rink (yes, you read correctly) and a piazza where cruise ship-style performers in tight leather pants and slinky halter tops sing ‘80s disco nightly.

But it’s not what I imagined. Once behind the iron gates, I was instantly relieved to find, not tackiness, but a sense of privacy amid lush, overhanging trees and a type of luxury only Europe can deliver. My room in the grand Hotel Castello was bright and airy, and had walls the color of limoncello; white furnishings and bedding; colorful Sardinian artwork; a flat-screen TV (unfortunately programmed to the disco singer) and a spacious terrace offering incredibly beautiful views of the sea and pine forests.
Picture
In 1990, Dr. Angelo Cerina, a Sardinian native, debuted Thaermae and his version of thalassotherapy – the basis being his patented, “unique to the world” sea oil. Although similar in consistency to oil, the substance is actually seawater “in very, very high concentration,” good, according to Cerina for “draining and detoxification of the body; treatment of edema, muscular trauma, osteoarthritic disorders, skin conditions such as psoriasis and even cellulite.” The sea oil is found in all of Thaermae’s thalasso-inspired spa treatments and specialty products, and is also a major highlight of the thalassotherapy pool circuit. 
Picture
Many who come to Cerina’s Roman-inspired waters opt for the three- or seven-day medically supervised thalassotherapy program designed specifically to address conditions like back pain and stress (hear that, Carlo), particularly anxiety and insomnia, as well as for rehabilitation (osteopathic and chiropractic treatments); and for women-only detoxifying treatments and cellulite reduction.
 
But short stays and single treatments are also therapeutic. Signatures include a watsu-like thalasso massage in a saline-dense, body temperature pool, and four-handed gommage, an invigorating rubdown with Cagliari salts, lemon juice and local honey, given by two  therapists in a scented steam room. Other notables include cryotherapy, where chilled sea oil is applied to the body to improve circulation, and salt massage, which is not a massage at all but rather an exfoliation with large chunks of salt mixed with lemon body cream. There’s also the massage with salt and aloe, which actually, is a massage that helps tone the skin and reduce fluid retention.
Picture
Despite the clinical overtures of the spa, its offerings are decadently luxurious and delivered surprisingly in a tree-house-like setting. Wooden walkways (similar to those at Nora) lead to private, glass treatment rooms canopied by giant trees and lush foliage. Sessions conclude with large cups of herbal tea served in an open-air courtyard, the teas bear names like “slimming” and “detoxifying” and are intended to enhance the effects of your treatments. Some spa-goers come solely for the outdoor thalassotherapy pools.
Picture
“Careful, careful, very slippery in here,” cautions a Saudi man, bobbing uncontrollably in the sea oil pool. The high content of magnesium colors the water a less than inviting dark brown, while the density, higher even than that in the Dead Sea, makes remaining upright nearly impossible.

His wife, veiled head to toe, hovers poolside, giggling at her husband’s buoyancy and asking questions about the experience. Is it hot? Cold? Relaxing? Oily?

An Italian woman, wearing only a thong and skimpy bikini top, smiles sympathetically at the veiled woman, but the moment is interrupted when a noisy group of rugged football players arrives. Time to move on.
 
A large clock and thermometer hang on a post alongside each pool, detailing both water temperature and the suggested length of time to soak. Following the guidelines to a tee, the six-pool circuit takes just over an hour. But most guests linger, slowly padding in cushy robes and flip-flops along winding pathways dense with low-hanging tree branches alive with tropical birds and butterflies.
 
From the sea oil pool, the circuit moves to the equally brown and equally warm (around 95F) Mare d’ Aloe pool, which combines the relaxing and therapeutic benefits of the sea oil with the anti-inflammatory properties of aloe. While the sea oil pool is, well, oily, the aloe vera pool is velvety and well designed with small grottoes, perfect for hiding.    The high saline pool (where you're likely to bump into a thalasso massage session) is next, followed by three more pools, each of varying temperatures (warm to quite cool) and fitted with hydromassage features, all with saline densities equal to the Mediterranean Sea. Ultimately the journey ends in a giant coed Turkish steam room, where amazingly to this underdressed American, the Europeans arrive in bathing suits.

The entire experience is addicting - not to mention ultra-relaxing. And in three days, I do the circuit four times.

Picture
On my final evening, dining on caprese and fregola, a tiny pasta typical to Sardinia prepared with fresh clams and tomatoes, local  Giorgia Lobina,  a Penelope Cruz lookalike,  invites me to accompany her to the resort’s glitzy piazza.
 
“There are many, many shops. Gucci. D&G. Just Cavalli. Laura Giagiotti and Bulgari.” Very tempting. “And live entertainment.” The image of the disco singer flashes before me, and I’m not so eager.
 
“It is your last night in Sardinia," Giorgia presses. "What would you like most to do?”
 
Red wine in hand, wearing white robe and flip-flops, I find my way back to the murky-brown, luxuriously warm sea oil pool. For more.
0 Comments

    Archives

    May 2016
    April 2016
    January 2016

    Categories
    Travel
    Spa
    Beauty
    Wellness

    All

    RSS Feed

©Shari Mycek. All rights reserved.