Corinne CrawfordThe spa day was very nice. My day started with an early morning walk along the old city walls and ramparts that stood between my apartment and the spa. Early by Girona standards though. Certainly not what I would call an early start in my domestic life. At 8:45am, I walked from the apartment along the river to the old town for about 15 minutes stopping for a coffee and a croissant on the way before finding one of the stairs up to the walls on the outskirts of the old city. After a steep ascent up the stairs at the entrance close to Placa de Catalunya, I found I was one of just a handful of people out and about at that hour and the only person on the wall walkway at all. I had the place to myself stopping to overlook the city as it and its citizens awakened. It only takes about 45 minutes to go from one end of the remaining walls to the other with a few ups and downs and turns as the old original walls, some Roman and some medieval, meet up with some of the renovated areas.
But I am not sure if it was because I had no crowds or I just walked fast, it only took me about 30 minutes before I came down the final set of stairs and finished the walk to the spa. There were towers you could climb up along the way but I skipped ladders and tower vestibules as some had the appearance that they were overnight shelters for someone/s and a few had the strong odor of urine. I skipped right by them all. At the appointed time, I entered the spa with two other people, a mother and son it appeared, and we all had 10am appointments but it was just us 3 at that time which is good because you can then move from sauna to steam to tubs and have them to yourself. The receptionist did not speak English and my Spanish was not as sufficient as I wish it was to completely understand the information and directions I was given about the lockers, the key, and where to go but after a bit of repeating and gestures, I changed into my swim suit in the locker room and finally figured out how to lock the locker with my clothes and purse in it using the magnetic wristband they provide. I put on my provided robe and slippers and then followed the receptionist down a flight of stairs to the Thermal Cycle area. She explained – in the same manner as before, slowly and repeatedly- each of the areas including a steam room, a dry salt sauna room, a rain path (I will explain in a minute), a sitting area with teas, and one floor down, the warm salt water floating bath, the traditional hot bath and then a deeper tub with stairs leading down into the water that had the feel of a baptismal bath or some other bathing ritual area, that was ice cold. Because I also had booked a “ritual” which basically was a massage with some essential oils and such, the woman told me she would come fetch me in an hour. The rain path was a neat touch. You took off your slippers and walked with your bare feet over small white stones slowly down a narrow hallway while a set of jets on either side of the hallway starting at your calves and a set at your thighs, then chest then head, sprayed warm/hot water at you consecutively as you walked along as well as water being lightly sprayed in a mist from above. It was harder to walk along the pathway than I thought it would be on those rocks so walking slowly was not a problem. After doing a few runs at that, I went to the steam room, then a few rounds in the warm, hot and cold baths and then back up to the dry sauna. I honestly thought I had moved pretty quickly through all of them and guessed that I had time for one more round at each of the things but before I could start back at the steam room, I was summoned to go to my massage by being handed paper underwear and new paper slippers. You wear your swimsuit for the Thermal Cycle as well as the robe they provide and the slippers but I was definitely getting the message that my suit was no longer needed and I looked skeptically at the paper underwear. I am a curvy girl and typically one-size-fits-all type of articles do not do as advertised-it does not fit all. So of course, as I am trying to get them up to situate them in the proper dignified places, I had to shimmy it a little aggressively and it rips – because it’s paper! – and I now had a set of paper drawers that covered even less of what they are intended to cover. Besides being a little embarrassed that I couldn’t even figure out how to successfully put on a paper diaper, I wasn’t too concerned with the modesty part because I was not provided a paper top so showing some skin was not the issue. It was all quickly forgotten once I got on the table to relax and the woman who was massaging me probably never noticed because a towel was covering my midsection the whole time. It was a decent massage but not excellent, I think because the pressure was a little too soft but because this was called a “ritual” and not just a massage, I was very hesitant to say something like – I like a bit more pressure- because if this lady is performing a ritual on me, who am I to tell her she’s doing it wrong. I didn’t want to come across too rude so I didn’t say a thing and enjoyed the relaxing massage for what it was.
