My Day at the Spa

Waiting for my massage..

I am not a Spa person.

Many years ago, I was on a business trip to Helsinki. 

These were the days when Finland was still a ‘communist’ country, and I was staying at the Marksi Hotel.

In the basement of the Marksi, there was a ‘spa’, which was a sauna center, very common in Scandinavia.

I had time to kill, so I wandered down there. (As I say, I am no Spa person, and Communist countries were not exactly spa destinations anyway.

Never the less, behind the desk at the Marksi spa center was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen.  Long blonde hair, grey eyes… dressed in a tiny white tunic with blue trim.  Stunning.
“Can I help you”? she asked.

“What’s the deal with the saunas?” I asked, looking for something to say…

“The sauna costs 10 Kroner or 90 Kroner”, she replied.

“What’s the difference?”

“For 10 kroner you are by yourself. For 90 Kroner one of the girls comes in and massages you”.

I paused.

“You’re kidding”

she smiled.

My 90 kroner was on the table.

“What do I do now?” I asked.

“Just go down to room number 4, take off all your clothes and wait. One of the girls will be by in a few minutes”.

So I did just that.  Sitting naked on the cold wood table, when suddenly, the door flew open and in came the biggest, ugliest, oldest woman I had ever seen.  She could have been the Russian heavyweight lifting Olympic champion in 1952.

“Ready?” she asked me…

“Well I……”

“Good!” she said, and proceeded to beat the living crap out of me.  And when that was over she stood me up against a concrete wall and fired two fire hoses at me – one boiling hot, the other freezing cold. Hot… cold…hot…cold.

That experience alone was enough to put me off spas and massages for the rest of my life. 

So it was with no small bit of decidedly negative anticipation when my wife suggested we head over to the Ossidiana Spa at the Relais Cappuccina in San Gimignano, Italy.  

Far from the Soviet style of the Marksi Hotel, this spa had all the trimmings of a ‘California’ spa – the new age music, the large warm salt water pool, the weird soft color lights and the burning incense. 

It also had the prices.  At Communist conversion rates in 1989, my Soviet massage cost me about $9.  Here in Tuscany, a ‘total body massage – with orange, vanilla, almond oil and warm flaxseed oil’ would run me 95 Euros or about $130.  The Italians are great with food, which may explain why the massage is descried as it is, but as my friend Ernest (who owns a house in Tuscany) tells me, the Italians are not so good with the personal service stuff.

He has it right.

The staff, (who looked as if they could use some spa treatments themselves), were totally disinterested in the whole thing.  Ever try to make eye contact with a waiter in a Paris bistro?  It’s pretty close to this experience.

Was the massage terrible?  

Well, for an hour you lay around in paper underwear and get slathered in vanilla while listening to new age music? This I could do at home.  And for far less.  The do have a sauna and a steam room, which, I was astonished to read in their brochure, you get to use for ‘only’ 45 Euros for 30 minutes in the ‘Ritual Hamman Steam Room’.  

I think the only ritual here is the magic separation of the tourist from their money.

Lisa got a pedicure, in which the ‘technician’ painted her nails purple and put a flower on her big toe.  Total cost: 34 Euros, 4 Euro surcharge for the ‘color’.

The Relais Cappuccina sells themselves as a Tuscan Spa, and indeed their brochure goes so far as to offer 5-day Spa Stays. Lucky for us we only drove up for an hour or so.  But as we were leaving we saw a German family unloading their bags from their car. I had every urge to run into the parking lot and tell them ‘leave while you still can’.

Dollar for dollar, I had a better time at the Finland spa.  At least there, when it was over I felt completely like a piece of overcooked spaghetti. Here, I only felt annoyed. 

Give this one a miss.