Vienna Spa Guide. Use the granular details of my independent spa guide to select from Vienna's best spa hotels and day spas: Which spa hotels to choose for couples and for families. And which spa hotels provide the best views. Use the links to find out how much a spa hotel would cost for a weekend, or however long you'd like to stay. Utterly precious and awe-inspiring: Park Hyatt's spa pool scored twice - first through its historic surroundings, second through its sheer elegance. Before I set sight on Arany Spa's centre piece I travelled down in the sumptuous wood-panelled 'directors' elevator' of the former Viennese bank.
Right in the wellness area a one-metre thick door spiked with six steel bolts opened up what were once the bank's vaults. Underneath a single spacious arch, the world's most meticulously secured swimming pool replaced stacks of solid bullions with azure-blue liquid bliss.
Since its transformation a couple of years ago the building's sparkle comes from other things than financial riches: now, shiny mother-of-pearl and some gold plated decorations create the bling, such as the golden swirl mosaics in a treatment room which remind of Gustav Klimt's Tree of Life see photo. In the sauna and steam bath area, a well-sized heap of crushed ice sprang up beneath iridescent tiles. I promised myself a tingling cool rub after a thorough warm up.
Like the treatment room's Klimt swirls, even the fitness centre left no doubt I was in Vienna: Ever lifted weights in an elegant dark panelled salon illuminated by elegant fabric lampshades? Vienna's most legendary luxury hotel not only ices its Sacher cakes in delicious chocolate. Clearly this treatment highly appeals to both couples and families. At the in-house spa the Sacher masseuses wrapped me in a chocolate body mask, among other delicious cacao-based treatments.
Before they brushed me with the warm light brown glaze I received a fine peeling with crushed cacao beans. Rather than using sticky liquid chocolate, the team applied its own nourishing and firming cacao cosmetics line. It smelled even more enticingly as the cake shop downstairs, just without the calories. Imagine the released essences and aromas enveloping you in a warm cloud of balmy vapour!
