Cleavages, Clefts, and Kilos

As I begin this, I am in Western Austria in a narrow valley toward the Italian border in a region known as Tirol. We are in a village called Laengenfeld, where there is a spa called The Aqua Dome. Now, ordinarily I am not the least interested in spas, but some friends of ours have been here three or four times. They cannot stop singing its virtues, so I decided to give Barbara a birthday gift of three nights in this hotel/spa. Unlike me, she can sniff out a spa miles away. The trip from Sachseln to the spa goes through the beautiful Arlberg region of Western Austria, so the three hour drive passed quickly. Our spa days began on a Tuesday, so we spent Monday night in a Gaesthaus near the village. That way, we could check in early and have a whole day of activity in the Aqua Dome. I think the words "decadent fitness" best describe the Aqua Dome. It is a sumptuous and elegant hotel with all the amenities one would expect. Having a daughter with a degree in hotel management, elegance in hotels is not an unknown concept for me. It reached a new level when we were upgraded to a suite with a fireplace, and I switched on the flat screen TV to be welcomed by name on the screen. Suffice it to say that this suite was luxury compounded. The philosophy of Aqua Dome seems to be to encourage fitness for those who want it and throw in as much decadence as anybody desires. They seem to do a great job with both entities. As one might expect, I went heavy on the decadent side. Here, I might mention that we are in Germanic Europe here where customs and mores can be a bit different from other places in the world. The brochures and web sites of the Aqua Dome mention that some areas of the spa are "Textilefrei". In English this basically means no clothes or bathing apparel. Where I come from originally, this means "nekkid". Saunas and spa pools are commonly sans clothes in the less puritanical areas of the world. This along with large pools of bubbling thermal spring water, had been an item on my bucket list for some time. I anticipated this with only minor reservations, quickly resolved by our friends who assured me that after five minutes, no one noticed a thing. Of course, I did not drive three hours just to skinny dip with a bunch of people who I never met, but it presented itself as an opportunity that I had not had, even with the neighbors next door to us in Switzerland who have a hot tub. Bathing in a thermal pool and enjoying the variety of saunas sounded good to me. The set up of the hotel was such that movement about between Textilefrei and clothed areas in the bathrobe furnished to each guest was no problem. I was surprised at how easy it became to shed all modesty and inhibitions when people without clothes were in the majority around you. We are all made alike in most ways, and sometimes slight variations can be of interest. There were no Playboy Bunnies seen by me, just natural creations. That all out of the way, food was another consideration, as the pictures below confirm. Breakfast and dinner came with the daily price of the hotel. Both were meals beyond the ordinary to say the least. If one was in a Textilefrei area and wanted one of the meals or a snack, this was not a problem. I saw a few people avail themselves of this in the areas set aside for such. Some had robes on, while others did not. Hot soup in the lap could be a hazard, I suppose. We had meals in the clothed hotel areas. In the main dining room, we were assigned a table for the duration of our stay and got to know our neighbors. The hotel and spa are multilingual, so all sorts of languages can be heard. English is spoken throughout, but as usual in Austria, the locals try to accommodate you if you try another language. Our servers went out of the way to help us along our somewhat primitive ways in German. It was obvious that the employees are happy here. They do a wonderful job and are genuinely happy to see you. English seems to be the common language between locals and those from elsewhere in the world. This is true in Switzerland, so we were not surprised.

Food is a subject close to our hearts. It would be an understatement of the first order to say that we had wonderful meals morning and night at the spa restaurant. I will say here that our photos are mostly of food or outdoor scenes. Carrying a camera into the "Textilefrei" areas did not seem like a good idea. After breakfast, anyone that needs to eat from hunger must have a serious medical problem. For a typical buffet breakfast, one finds analmost indecent array of food. Huge buffet tables of breads, fish, sauces, cereals, meats, fruit and juices, cheeses, and eggs. We agreed that three days of this was about all we could handle without going home in a smock with guilt about gluttony.

My routine became thus, in the morning I spent time in the "Saunawelt" alternating between several different saunas and periods in the two thermal pools. Both pools had alternating changes in the water flows, so one got a massage, as well as, a soak in warm water. At one end of a pool there was a terrace where one could have a drink or snack, in or out of, your robe. Behind that area was an outdoor sunbathing area walled off with hedges. There, one can find a area of snow, if you are so inclined to roll in it after a sauna. About noon, I would pull on some trunks and go to the regular swimming areas. There one could stay under cover or go into one of the three elevated basins. There was a choice of a whirlpool, a salt water pool, or a pool containing a higher level of sulfur. They all had fountains and whirlpool action. Everywhere, one could lean back and see blue skies and alps. A moonlight evening soak was spoiled by the coming clouds. After a day of such delights, one felt very pleasantly fatigued. Not work fatigue, but that fatigue that is such as one feels after a long period of slow running.

After some evening libation (saw no snakes but was on the lookout), it was dinner time. That was never a chore! By ten PM, no one wanted to do anything but sleep, and sleep well.

If this was spa life, number me among its fans. If anyone was serious about spa treatments, there were plenty from which to choose. There was even a 500 calorie menu to order, if you dared do this.

Some of our food pornography is at:

http://tinyurl.com/64pppp9