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.”
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.”
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.
"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.
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.
“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.
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
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
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