Finding a new skin at Terme di Saturnia in Italy
Catherine Fairweather writes:
It is all about the waters; stripping and stepping into a steaming lake, as warm as a baby’s bath is, to slough off layers of dead skin, and thick pelts of stress and worry. Thermal soaking induces a kind of stupefaction, both an existential and a physical pleasure. Friday is late-night closure, when through the sulphurous wisps of steam spiralling into the chill November air, I tiptoe into the enticing giant bubbling cauldron, reach for a ‘noodle’ float for my neck and watch the full-moon flirt with the scudding clouds. Gelatinous strands of algae drift past, anti-ageing manna for the regulars, who smear this fermented bio plankton over their faces and arms. A twenty-minute soak is recommended, followed by a shoulder massage under the ‘waterfall’ and a rest in the hay room, before falling into bed for the sound sleep of the innocent with ‘a new skin to dress a renewed soul’ thereafter, as the spa mantra promises.
