Travel to Spain- Health Tourism

Opening up your senses, recharging your batteries or learning the secrets of mediation. Everything is possible at those centres of relaxation known as spas. Since celebrities started going to them to unwind, get away from their packed agendas and place themselves in the hands of voguish gurus, the culture of water and health has grown apace. This is especially so in Spain, where hydrotherapy has centuries of history behind it.
The village of Las Caldas, just nine kilometres away from Oviedo, is a fully fledged spa town. In fact, ist very name means - the thermal springs-.
At one with ist bathing establishment since the 18th century, it preserves the magical and nostalgic essences of the thermal resort. Spas like Las Caldas, associated in the 19th century with the health and leisure of the bourgeoisie and with romantic legend, and famous as the haunts of intellectuals and, above all, the resting places of the privileged, continue to attract those who seek relaxation today. The modern concept of health tourism, which regards spas as centres for prevention as well as therapy, and as ideal places for leisure pursuits, has allowed many thermal resorts to reopen.
The use of water as a therapeutic agent is extremely ancient, and Spain ist he heir to a tradition that was established on ist soil thousands of years ago, with the Greeks, Romans and Arabs among ist practitioners. The vast majority of our thermal centres with medicinal mineral waters are located in landscapes of great natural beauty, with mountains, beaches or forests around them. There are more than 2000 springs registered all over Spain and their quality and quantity makes the country the great spa centre of Europe.
Over a hundred resorts offer not only the curative properties of massages and thermal baths but also peace, tranquillity and comfort. Their waters, rich in sulphur, chlorine, sodium and calcium, yield magnificent results in the treatment of many chronic disorders, and aid convalescence from other acut ones. Therse centres of therapy and leisure are therefore amoung the world´s best, attracting those who want to recover the energy they have spent over the past and find the peace and quit they are looking for.
Examples include such legendary names as
Balneario de Lanjarón
Panticosa
Puente Viesgo
Fuencalientes
Ledesma
Caldes DÉstrac
Confrentes
Alange
Banos de Fitero
La Toja
Cestona
One Magnificent option ist he brand new spa of Mas Torrent, an old 18th century Catalan Farmhouse in the heart of the Empordá region, which has been converted into a five-star hotel where well-being and health are immersed in the heart of nature.
The gourmet spa of the Hotel Cándido in Segovia offers health based on aromas of vanilla, toffee or fudge fused together in a plastic mask, the objective being to relieve stress and relax the skin. The first 5* hotel to open in the province of Almeria contains the Envia Natural Health Center, a complex devoted to health and well-being, whose highlight is an exclusive oil therapy treatment using Castillo de Tabernas olive oil. Chrerries are the basis of the new treatment offered by the Centro Hespérides Talaso Spa at the Sheraton Fuerteventura, since they possess remineralising, antioxidising and disintoxicating properties and are furthermore very rich in iron, calcium and vitamic C.
Caldea, midway between France and Spain, offers grapefruit bath and over 80 specific treatments, such as the Thalgomen Ocean form n over thirty.
Tranquillity seekers who stay at the Hotel Real in Cantabria are renovated inside and out with seaweed, sand and mud, whilst Madrid offers the highly original experience of a nocturnal session at the Caroli Health Club in La Moraleja, whose highly exclusive well-being programme is a very good way to surprise your love for a weekend.
Of course, adventurers with rather larger budgets who are addicted to luxury, comfort, privacy and exclusivity also have a complete new concept of spa at their disposal. The objective of those who frequent these spas- whose name, according to some, is an acronym from the Latin - Salus Per Aquam- which means health through water- is to combine leisure with of life. Here they find exercise, relaxation, massages, beauty treatments and personal trainers. The old spa resorts, now converted into q new product called wellness, regards the culture of medicinal waters as a tendency of a society in search of healty habits, fort he ideal way to counteract the stress of routine is to re-establish harmony between body and mind. Easy accessibility and a lack of medical counterindications make spas the perfect places for rest and well-being.
Air, water, oil and beauty form the basis of the treatments to be discovered through the world´s best massages. They include reflex therapy from China for inner activation, shiatsu from Japan involving acupressure, Thai massage based on stretching, reiki usui from Tibet for boosting the vital flow, ayuverdic massage, aromatic massages, lomi-lomi and shirodhara, not forgetting therapeutic and circulatory massages of sports massages with essential oils. Besides seaweed, oil and mud, peace loving clients are also invigorated outside and in by saunas, Turkish baths, thermal baths and jacuzzis.
„ I dream of a place where body and soul will be jointly revitalised in a restorative and liberating experience „ said Giorgio Armani who has just opened his first spa at Ginza Towers in Tokyo, Japan.
Treatments are offered there in three private suites. Obsidian, a volcanic stone extracted from Pantelleria ist he ingredient common to all the creams and lotions. It purifies, softens, regenerates and embellishes the skin.
Health tourism finally looks set to become the second most important sub-sector of the tourist industry after sun and sand. With ist high quality and full range of services, health tourism has become a perfect complement fort he industry´s other segments, and is a major aid to ist priority objective of establishing an offer that is not primarily seasonal.