USP A good-value week of Swiss high life with lavish
treatments earned after fun days of off-road scootering and Nordic walking.
AMBIENCE The spa is a cross between clinical and cosy, with
soothing music. There is no tedious formality or dress code.
QUALITY OF EXPERIENCE The sign outside the mixed sauna area
wasn’t so much a suggestion as an imperative to strip off (yikes! and even
with blokes about). Thank heavens for the ladies-only area. I slid
butt-naked into the aroma grotto, a scented Tardis-like chamber with a giant
crystal in it, and tried to relax before my Alpienne Relax treatment.
Karin, my therapist, was a dream. Soothing, assured manner? Check. Firm,
clever hands? Check. Experience? She has a decade’s worth. The treatment
included a foot massage with arnica milk in a candle-lit boudoir, then a
soak in a “Honey-Swiss stone pine bath”' (more stoic disrobing.) After
pouring in aromatic honey and pine oils, Karin disappeared and I was left to
loofah myself with the bits of orange shavings that bobbed about.
The stone pine is something of a miracle tree; prolonged whiffs of the bark
are thought to slow down your heartbeat and boost circulation. Nicely woozy,
I was primed for my back massage with the Oil of Life, aka marmot oil (from
an Alpine rodent), a local cure for aching muscles, rheumatism and skin
complaints. Seems that the Alps are overrun with the critters.
Every autumn a number are culled and the oil is extracted and bottled.
Whatever qualms I had (none, actually) melted away under Karin’s expert
ministrations. This was a proper, medicinal pummelling and bliss to my
knotty shoulders and stiff spine. Classy product lines, fitness classes are
free to guests and there’s a medical centre, with a team of doctors. Beyond
the hotel, you can participate in adventure sports, golf or hiking.
FOOD Ostrich steak, lavender crème brûlée in Les Saisons, one
of the hotel’s three restaurants.
IN CROWD Affluent Europeans who view pampering as a
necessity, off-duty tycoons, discreet glamour-pusses and athletes such as
the tennis champion Roger Federer. Liz Hurley has visited the spa.
WALLET WATCH Treatments start at about £30 for a 25-minute
Breuss back massage to £130 for the 110-minute Vitality of the Glaciers
facial. BA Holidays currently offers three nights in St Moritz from £397 a
person, including return flights from Gatwick or Heathrow to Zurich, plus
three nights at the Kempinski, half-board. Spa treatments and activities are
extra. For more details visit www.ba.com.
A second-class return train ticket from Zurich airport to St Moritz costs
about £62. To book, www.swisstravelsystem.ch. Alternatively, the Kempinski
Grand Hotel Les Bains offers a four-night wellness package, available until
October 18, for £565 per person. It includes half-board and three days of
spa treatments.
NEED TO KNOW The St Moritz Spa, Kempinski Grand Hotel des
Bains, St Moritz, Switzerland (00-41-81 8383838; www.kempinski-stmoritz.ch)
For more than 210 independent spa reviews log on to timesonline.co.uk/goodspaguide
