Soaring Temperatures

Austria, February, snow everywhere.

Imagine for a moment getting out of the car in the snow and walking into a heated establishment.

Then by choice entering a very small room where we sat on wooden benches, the walls and ceiling even the floor all timber.  We are all sitting crammed together like sardines and all naked.  When a man stood up and started whirling a towel around his head and the temperature in the room that was up by the ceiling was being brought down to the sardines sitting on the benches.  Slowly the temperature became unbearable.  People sitting on the top row moved down a row, some were very experienced and could cope at the top which was the hottest.  No one could argue, hot air certainly rises!

So when this fella is standing up naked twirling a towel around over his head to create a fan effect, I did not know where to look.  Was he paid to do that job?  He seemed to be very good at it and the temperature was soaring.  Or was he just an exhibitionist?

There is a sauna etiquette, that once you have entered the sauna you cannot leave until everyone leaves together.  This is because every time the door is opened for someone to leave the cold air from the outside lowers the internal temperature inside the sauna and everyone inside suffers.  I have never experienced heat like it in a sauna anywhere else in the world.  

Having never been in a sauna where you had stay the time, not knowing how long that would be,  each minute at that temperature felt like we were in slow motion.  At last the doors were open and I was spat out face as red as a beetroot into the snow outside  where we went to cool off before daring to go back into the soaring heat again.  The regulars were rolling in the snow.  I just stood outside that was enough for me to cool down.  Plunge pools were available too and were a much more gentle option.

We had entered a day spa complex from a fantasy world.  There were gorges that you could swim through and waterfalls at the end of the pool with ferns growing on the vertical walls to look like a jungle river gorge in some tropical zone.  One pool was huge and had seating and dining etc all around it and big glass walls where you could see the snow outside piled up high like white cottonwool.  Part of the pool was outside and a huge plastic divider hung down into the water to stop the cold winds entering the room.  It was amazing to swim from the heated internal room under the plastic divider to be swimming under the stars surrounded by snow.

There were lots of rooms to discover, steam rooms with beautiful mosaic tiling from the floor to ceiling, beautiful humidity and very gentle heat.  Each room was an artistic delight to the visual as well as a sensual delight to the physical and the combination of these ensured a delight to the mental health of all.

In one room there was a strange procession of people all following the leader in a strange semi circular gutter.  There were two semi circular gutters to form a circle and in one was very hot water and in the other very cold.  This was all about circulation of the feet.  Walking around one half in hot and then stepping out of the hot into the very cold was such a shock to the tootsies.  By this time being naked had lost it’s confrontation.  I liked it!

Whilst in Austria visiting friends of friends here in Australia. One evening this was our entertainment to go to this day spa complex.  It was confronting to arrive and there was one change room for all and no one wore anything at all whilst there.  People carried a towel with their locker key pinned to it.  So we sat and chatted to strangers we had never met in the many pools and sat buttock to buttock with who knows who in the steam room and sauna.  Confronting and liberating at the same time.