Back in the summer, I had a beautiful spa evening but even while I was enjoying it, I was thinking how much more I’d enjoy it in the winter, when it was dark and cold. So I picked an evening when it would be wintery, when it wasn’t half term or Christmas or Valentine’s Day and that evening was all the way back in early December.
It was perfectly timed. Between Blogmas, my Bronze Maverick Award and volunteering with Girlguiding two nights a week for the first time in well over two and a half years, I’d piled quite a lot on myself and it turned out having an enforced evening of not being able to do any of it was precisely what I needed.
I was never the spa type. No, I never thought I was the spa type. By 2010, when I had two spa days in six months, thanks to a hen do and a work Christmas party, I realised that I’m a spa girl to my very core. And a year later, when I went to Iceland for the first time and sat in the Blue Lagoon during a snowstorm, I realised that hot water + cold weather = absolute bliss. I already knew that: one of my fondest memories of my year abroad was the day we went to the thermal baths at Yverdon-les-Bains, where we relaxed in the outdoor pool surrounded by heavy steam wafting off the water, and piles of snow around the edges.
Last year I went glamping in the summer and discovered that I just don’t want to sit in a hot tub until late enough in the evening that it’s cool enough to enjoy it and dark enough that I’m too scared to. That’s why I’m going on my third glamping trip in as many winters this weekend – I’m going to wallow in that hot tub in the December misery.
So a winter spa evening ticked all my boxes.
It was twilight when I arrived at Aqua Sana Longleat, appropriately enough for a Twilight Spa. I was given one of those big durable woven paper bags to keep my robe and towel dry in, I hid my GoPro in my robe pocket and in I went. No need to spend time getting to know the place this time; I knew what I liked and where I wanted to spend time and which bits I’d missed last time and I started in the Volcanic Steam Room. I said this last time but I’m a simple soul who’s always going to gravitate towards the thing painted red and black with the name “volcano” over the door. That said, the Volcanic one is my favourite of the steam rooms. It’s the most comfortable temperature, it’s not so violently steamy that you can’t see and it’s not scented – and when I say “scented”, I mean that you can taste the perfume when you walk past someone who’s been in any of the others.
By the way, if the photos make the place look deserted it’s because it’s rude to take photos of people without consent, especially when they’re in swimwear. The camera only came out when I was in empty rooms.
Then I went in the outdoor pool. It absolutely is outside but it’s in the middle of the building, in a miniature courtyard and you access it from the steps on the inside. By this time, it had got dark and I could drift around and look up at the sky. If you make a point of looking at the sky and not at the glass spa walls, you can start to see stars and I could see Vega and Altair right up ahead. A year ago I barely knew Vega’s name and now I can recognise her virtually through a pinhole. I was absolutely right: this place was wonderful in the cold and the dark. I want to come here every week. I want to come here every day!
I did the tour of the other places. I sat in both the Volcanic and Nordic saunas. Because everything has glass doors and glass walls, you can sit in the Volcanic sauna and look straight across through the Nordic sauna and to the outside. I hadn’t realised just how much you’d feel the dark even inside. I’d expected the pool to be nicely wintery and the Hot Springs Garden, which is outside, to be amazing, but I hadn’t realised you’d see it all from so deep inside. In the summer you can see that this is all nestled in a pine forest. Now, with the forest just about silhouetted against the sky, it felt like Christmas. Outside the Nordic sauna window is the Scandinavian Snug, which is a wooden cabin. In my experience, Scandinavia is more prone to birch and larch than pine but I was surprised at how easily I could believe I was up in the Arctic Circle.
The only thing was the sauna. Since the last time I was here, I’ve read Cathedrals of the Flesh, which is about bathing and spa experiences around the world (I think that post is due the day after tomorrow; I’ll link it when it’s live) and I was acutely aware that there’s virtually nothing of the authentic Finnish sauna about Aqua Sana’s Nordic sauna. There’s no steam, there’s no chocolatey smell of the wood, there’s no sense of community or tradition. I suspect this is what Krauma calls an “infra red cell”, or what I call “an interesting room with the heating turned up too high”. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I liked it. I liked the white lights and pale wood and openness of the Nordic sauna and I liked the dark red atmosphere of the Volcanic sauna. But it wasn’t what I’d expect in an Arctic Finnish village.
Time for the hot tubs. I’d hung my bag up to keep my robe and towel dry for later when I wanted them so I scuttled outside barefoot in just my swimsuit to find a space in the hot tubs. Aqua Sana, you need to put at least another out here, maybe another two. Luckily a Wednesday evening in November is about as low season as it gets and it’s easier to find a space for one than a group. It also wasn’t as cold as I expected. I wouldn’t go out dressed like this by choice but I also didn’t feel like I was going to die of hypothermia anytime soon.
Yes, they’re nice. I’d turn the temperature up a bit myself – I’m used to Icelandic hot tubs being a tiny bit uncomfortably hot – but it was warm enough to sit outside in November and look up at pine trees and stars. It’s darker out here than it is in the central pool so if I sat back and stared upwards long enough, more and more stars appeared. The only trouble with that is that hot water does odd things to your blood pressure anyway and you exacerbate that by tipping your head backwards. I soon realised it was making me dizzy and gave up. I can sit and enjoy the hot water and the blue and purple lights. I was joined by some of what I’d initially taken to be a hen party (did they have to be there the same night as me? Hen parties are loud and screechy and spas are supposed to be quiet) which turned out to be an extended family there for a 60th birthday. Every single one of them, but especially the birthday girl, had been unsure about this because people aren’t used to being in public in swimsuits but once they’d more or less got over the self-consciousness, they were all having a wonderful time. And I chatted happily. I’d often sit there and sulk and resent five people intruding on my hot tub but I liked these ones. See, I can be sociable sometimes!
Four hours flew by. Last time I was here, I planned my personal spa to be built in an outhouse on the massive plot of land I’ll have when I buy a house (when I buy a house, I’ll be lucky to get two bedrooms and somewhere to leave my car) but this time, if I thought about my spa future, it was to come back here as often as I can. Ten minutes before closing time, I’d pointed out Jupiter to some strangers in the central pool and we were having a very serious discussion about the possibility of humans elsewhere in the universe. Five minutes. I knew from one of the birthday party that the staff here finish at ten so I figured I was perfectly within my rights and their schedule to stay in until nine on the dot – I’m quite practised at a quick change after this sort of thing and knew that I’d be out of the building long before many people who’d got out of the water before me. And I was.
It still wasn’t particularly cold when I left. I like it to be cold when I’m at the spa but it’s not so fun to freeze half to death running back to the car, so that was nice of the weather. Next week I’m going to Germany and I have every intention of going to a proper thermal spa surrounded by proper snow and maybe have a cup of hot chocolate before getting back on the train. But for now, Aqua Sana in warm-ish November would do very nicely.