Italian alpine spas

Where wellness seekers flock to wallow in restorative waters and sport is an afterthought

A PARADISE for skiers, the Italian Alps of South Tyrol offer a more placid pastime that’s surging anew. A host of spas are sprouting up in isolated tracts among the highlands, and though there’s hiking, biking and access to some of the Alps’ easier ski slopes, sports are a mere afterthought here. The spas draw skiers and non-skiers alike to spend days soaking in hot tubs, besotted by the view of these commanding, iceshrouded peaks.

Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, when mineral springs became Europe’s cure-all for medical ills, wellness seekers flocked to the region’s famous waters and sanitariums. Today’s alpine spas are updating this long tradition as the present-day search for wellness has reinvigorated the desire for their timeless sedative effects.

For those of us who have forgotten what a multitude of stars looks like, the Italian Alps offer an immersion into lost wonders of contemporary life. Untrammelled snow. Unsullied air. A velvet cloak of silence. And the immeasurable reprieve of poor cellphone receptions.

It’s little surprise that these mountains have become the locus of a cluster of modern spa destinations designed to draw city dwellers to a place where tranquillity imposes itself by the very nature of the landscape.

In December, I headed to the Alps to see how these age-old cures stood up to our high-intensity era of stress and self-care, visiting four contemporary spas set amid the summits of Italy’s

South Tyrol region.

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