Relaxing Weekend Getaway: Scandinave Spa

My favourite relaxing weekend getaway is Scandinave Spa, without question. It’s so dreamy and the concept is beautifully simple: use water and temperature to flush toxins. But if you’re going to do it, you have to be all in. The whole idea is this:

1. Soak in a hot tub for 20 minutes, letting the warmth open your pores and your toxins flow out.
2. Rinse those toxins off your skin with a two second to two minute dip in the cold pool.
3. Rest in a relaxation area for 20 minutes, basking in the surprisingly exhausting glory of the cleansing your body is doing.
4. Repeat. Often.

#2 is super important, and I know it’s hard. Going from an 40ºC (104ºF) hot tub to an 17ºC (63ºF) cold pool isn’t exactly my idea of a good time. But it truly is what takes the experience to the next level of unwinding. So much so that after you’ll often find me unabashedly snoring in a hammock.

And the silence is oh so sublime…

I always think to myself that I should spend more time in silence, not thinking. An at-home silent retreat, but I never do.

We visit the Scandinave Spa at Blue Mountain once a year and it isn’t nearly enough. But we do spend all day there, and I mean all day. We’re there when they open at 10am and float between pools until five or six in the evening, stopping only for lunch and what seems like hundreds of bathroom breaks. And by the end of the day I’m utterly worn out, yet invigorated and smiling from ear to ear.