100 holiday ideas for 2010: Spas

Jo Fernandez
Sunday 03 January 2010 01:00 GMT
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The Blythswood Square hotel (blythswoodsquare.com), in the Georgian-style former headquarters of the Royal Scottish Automobile Club, will add a new spa as well as another stylish touch to Glasgow's hotel scene from April.

Click here or on the image to see the spas in pictures

Treatments will use the luxury organic brand Ila and fashionable Anne Semonin products, with guests indulging in therapies as varied as a Seaweed Bath, its contents sourced from the Hebrides, or the rather more glamorous experience of bathing in the warm waters of the Dark Pool, beneath a crystal chandelier. The spa, like its host hotel, aims to sparkle, too, with green credentials that feature energy efficiency methods including a water-conservation system that gathers rainwater.

Down in the honey-hued Cotswolds, the first Temple Spa in the UK opens this month in a converted coach house at the super-stylish Cotswold House Hotel (cotswoldhouse.com) in Chipping Campden. The benefits of its treatments are self-explanatory –

from the "Aaahhh! Foot and Leg Energiser" to the "Head in the Clouds Massage" – and will use herbs freshly picked from the hotel garden.

The New Forest's latest boutique hotel, Lime Wood (limewoodhotel.co.uk), from the co-founder of the Hotel du Vin chain, is already open for business but its spa won't be welcoming visitors until next autumn. Expect treatments using Bamford products and facilities including a hydrotherapy pool.

In the West Country, a luxurious new retreat called The Cornwall Hotel Spa & Estate (thecornwall.com) will open in February in Tregorrick. The centrepiece of its Clearing Spa, set in a converted stables, is a chemical-free, infinity-edge pool with retractable glass walls opening on to a sub-tropical walled garden. Refinery and Aromatherapy Associates products will feature in the treatment rooms.

For high-altitude relaxation, head for the Aquagranda Livigno Wellness Park (inghams.co.uk), which just opened in the laid-back, wallet-friendly Italian ski resort of Livigno. Thalassotherapy and salt baths with colour and music therapy are among specialist offerings.

The Mandarin Oriental group has been busy this year with new openings in Barcelona and Las Vegas (mandarinoriental.com/lasvegas). The Vegas outpost is tapping into the city's growing non-gaming scene with its Eastern-inspired wellness therapies, featuring Aromatherapy Associates' products. This sizeable Strip-side haven has 17 treatment rooms, areas for relaxation and water experiences, a fitness centre, yoga studio and a swimming pool with 20 cabanas.

Meanwhile, in Antigua, there will be no more in-room treatments for guests at the newly refurbished private-island resort of Jumby Bay (jumbybayresort.com). Eighteen months of work and an outlay of $28m (£17.5m) has produced a new beachside Sense spa – all polished marble and teak – which will use home-grown products. The Lava Shell massage, using specially activated seashells to promote a sense of wellbeing, is just one of its more curious treatments.

The opening of Six Senses Latitude Laamu (sixsenses.com) in the early part of the year will mark the popular wellness group's debut in the Maldives. Groovy double-treatment Bamboo Nests as well as holistic therapies using fresh natural products are among the delights promised.

And the funky W hotel brand will open its first retreat in South-east Asia, the W Retreat Koh Samui, on 1 April 2010 (starwoodhotels.com). Its Away Spa will offer a "thaimazcal" (pictured) with treatments based on Brazilian tribal rituals. Finally, to Dubai, where the Burj Dubai – the tallest building in the world – is due to open tomorrow. One of its exclusive features will be the first Armani Hotel (armanihotels.com) with its own spa using Armani's skincare line.

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