#oneaday Day 823: Today is spa

As has sort of become "tradition" over the course of our last few holidays at Center Parcs, today we had our day at the Aqua Sana spa. And, as always, it was a thoroughly pleasant experience.

If you've never been to a spa for one reason or another, I highly encourage you to give it a go if the opportunity arises. And, if possible, I recommend going to a proper spa, not a hot shed that a three-star hotel describes as a "sauna".

The Aqua Sana spa here at Center Parcs in Longleat Forest has a number of different "experiences", they call them — they're rooms, really. And each of them very much have their own feel and character.

The centrepiece of the whole thing is a moderately sized circular pool with nice warm water and jacuzzi-style bubbles around about a quarter of the circle's circumference. There's an underwater bench so you can sit in the bubbles, and the rest of the pool is just… sort of there. Andie quite rightly questioned why they didn't just do bubbles all the way around the outside, and I don't really have a good answer for that. Regardless, the pool is a nice stop if you're not sure what to do next, as soaking in warm, bubbly water is always pleasant.

There are a number of saunas and steam rooms scattered throughout the complex. These vary in size, heat, humidity and smell. There's a large what I would describe as a "traditional" sauna, which is just a big hot room with wooden benches, but there are several which are "themed", mostly through the lighting and decor. Our favourite is the "volcanic" sauna, which is dark aside from some red lights at floor height and a feature wall with sort of "crystals" in it. It's a very nice environment to go and be hot in.

There's also a "volcanic" steam room next door to the sauna, which adopts the same stylings, only with more steam and more pleasant smells being piped in. I'm not entirely sure exactly what the smell is, but it's nice, and it sort of sticks to you after you've left, too, meaning for the rest of the day you have the pleasant scent of having been relaxing hovering around you. Better than your usual stench, no doubt.

We actually managed to get into the hot tubs this time around. The last time we came, they were out of order for refurbishment, and the time before that, they were being monopolised by a group of people who had evidently been in there for some time and had no desire to move. A shame, but I wasn't too mad; there are plenty of other things to do around the place, and a hot tub is, on the grand scheme of the other stuff available, relatively mundane.

There are several rooms specifically set aside just to be "relaxation" rooms. There's one with absolutely enormous beds in a nice sort of wicker "cocoon"; there's another that is modelled after a Scandinavian lodge; another that is designed to look like a cave in a forest; and another still where they project an accelerated day-night cycle of the sky onto the ceiling. There's also a room with heated stone beds that are inexplicably comfortable due to how they are contoured to fit the human body and a room with water beds. It's very tempting to just go into one of these rooms and sleep for several hours.

Every room is accompanied by various generic, non-obtrusive music of varying descriptions, ranging from ethereal plinky-plonky piano to what I would describe as solemn Viking battle preparation chants. All in all, it's a very pleasant place to spend a few hours.

And they feed you, too! Today we had the Afternoon Tea, which consisted of some sandwiches, some delicious tiny cakes and a scone with clotted cream and jam, plus a drink. Doesn't sound like much but it's surprisingly filling — and you might be a tad shocked at the calorie count too!

So yeah. It's been a nice day. Nice enough for me to not really be all that bothered that my mini PC appears to be dead — or, at least, is not in a position to be usable while I am away. We'll have a go at diagnosing the problem a little better when we actually get home, but for now, it doesn't matter and I don't really care. Well, I care a bit, it is my work machine and I would rather it wasn't broken, but still. I am in a relaxed, breezy sort of mood rather than stressed out and wanting to repeatedly turn it on and off all evening while getting increasingly irate.

Anyway, it is late now, and I think it is time to take a day of relaxation to its natural conclusion by… well, going to sleep. So that's what I'm going to do.

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