50 SPAS we Love
Luxury SpaFinder has declared its love for the SPA at Pädaste Manor, together with 50 other fine SPA’s from all over the world. Their love list includes the Peninsula Hong Kong; the Canyon Ranch; the The Oberoi, Mauritius; the Brenner’s Park; Parrot Cay and 44 others.
By: Ann Abel, Melisse Gelula, and Gary Walther, with Susan Crandell, Alexander Lobrano, and Everett Potter
This map is an atlas of amour. It shows the location of 50 spas we’ve fallen hard for over the past two years. You’ll find a love letter about each one in the following pages. Some of the spas are new loves, meaning we encountered them only recently (although most have been open for many years), and some of them are spa spouses, places to which we’ve formed lasting attachments. Some we love despite their quirks, and some precisely for their quirks. A few embody the essence of falling in love, the element of surprise, and a number embody the legacy of being in love—life change fostered, well-being engendered. Love’s various chords are reflected in this section’s organization. It begins with the falling, New Loves and Love at First Sight; takes in spas that are expert at two special strains, Tough Love and Doting Love; and culminates in Enduring Love. As a coda, there’s Labor of Love, our homage to 13 great spa therapists. They and these 50 spas are our heartthrobs.
Babied in the Baltic
Waking from the nap that followed an Early Morning Nourishing Treatment —seawater hot-tub soak, honey-and-milk bath, and lavender-oil temple massage— I wasn’t surprised to find a pot of linden-flower tea beside my chaise and an alpaca throw carefully arranged around me. That’s because Pädaste Manor, Estonia’s best country-house hotel, had spoiled me in only 48 hours. The small spa (1,500 square feet, two treatment rooms) is the most reflexively cosseting one I’ve been to in Europe — the therapists specialize in grandmotherly babying. More delightful yet, they’re surprised and bashful when you thank them, because they consider it a privilege to care for you, a foreigner who’s honored them by visiting their country.—A.L.
011-372-454-8800, www.padaste.ee
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