Soaked in Swiss bliss

STILL feeling the effects of festive season shenanigans ? Why not purify your soul and body in the cool, clean climes of the sexy Swiss Alps?

IT'S a fair bet that most New Year resolutions involved staying fit, healthy, clean and pure so maybe it's time to spend the looming northern spring exploring the time-worn benefits of balneology.

Defined by the Oxford Dictionary as the "scientific study of bathing and mineral springs", balneology had its origins in the late 19th century in the great health spas around Europe's gushing mineral and thermal springs where the jaded, the infirm and the elderly flocked to "take the waters".

Balneologists say it's not just the waters that produce beneficial effects; it's also about the integration of beautiful surroundings, a peacefulness that allows insight and circumspection, breathing clean air, drinking natural mineral water and eating sensible food.

Where better to purify soul and body but in the cool, clean, quiet, majestic Swiss Alps?

Super-posh resorts where the royals, the mega-rich and the stars come out to play all incorporate splendid (and expensive) spas.

St Moritz

The "newest" plush pile at St Moritz is Kempinski Grand Hotel des Bains, a five-star converted 19th-century palace built next to the old iron-rich Mauritius Spring, which has a granite and timber spa, saunas, steam baths and a gourmet Italian restaurant, Ca d'Oro.

For $780 you can rub shoulders with the rich and famous at the Kempinski for two nights and enjoy free Alpienne Well Vital Treatments in the 2500sq m St Moritz Spa, including a herbal footbath and foot massage.

Not to be outdone, the Fairmont Le Montreux Palace, built in 1906 on the shores of Lake Geneva with spectacular views of the Alps, is an elegant, belle epoque jewel where the Willow Stream Spa dispenses a blend of Western technologies and Eastern spa therapies, including tai chi, ayurveda, yoga and pilates.

Two-night spa packages at Le Montreux Palace start from $900, six nights from $2330.

Heidiland

But the Swiss wellness experience for body and soul doesn't always cost an arm and a leg.

In the chocolate-box region known as Heidiland, in Canton St Gallen, Tamina Gorge is the source of a huge hot mineral spring (36.5C) that roars out of the mountains into a fern-filled ravine.

Bad Ragaz

About 3km away in the peaceful, pretty spa town of Bad Ragaz, Tamina Therme has harnessed the hot spring water to warm one outdoor and two indoor pools enhanced by a grotto, bubble massage seats and a waterfall.

At these elegant and impossibly clean public baths in the town centre, where ethereal mists hover over the outdoor thermal pool with fantastic views of the Alps, mass-ages, grape leaf body wraps and wine soaks are the order of the day.

Two-night Bad Ragaz Relax packages start from $212, including breakfasts, one dinner, one entry to Tamina Therme and one Wellness-Kit,valid until March 25.

Canton Valais

To the west, at Leukerbad in Canton Valais, Lindner Alpen-therme is the largest alpine medical wellness, beauty and thermal baths complex in Europe. Get back to nature in a two-hour nude ritual that transports you through 10 sublime experiences.

Or go for something more exotic such as Balinese Boreh, a detox bath and massage procedure. Two-night packages start from $354.

The five-star, belle epoque Parkhotel Waldhaus in Flims is set in the largest hotel grounds in Switzerland surrounded by gar-dens, parks, forests and mountain views. Prices start at $240 per room per night, including breakfast and full use of the spa.

Canton Graubuenden

In the remote alpine village of Vals in Canton Graubuenden is one of Switzerland's most cutting-edge spas, a modernistic gem carved into a mountain that attracts not just spa fans but architecture junkies as well.

Tapping into the only thermal spring in Graubuenden, Swiss architecture guru Peter Zumthor used timber, water, light and 60,000 stone slabs of Vals quartzite to create his award-winning Therme Vals, and then covered the roof with grass to look like an alpine meadow. Built next to a 1960s-style hotel, Therme Vals was listed as a protected building in 1998, just two years after it was built.

In the spa's lower reaches are the jacuzzis and treatment rooms but the main attraction is the series of enormous pools illuminated from below and from above through blue-tinted skylights, some hot, some cold, some scented with fresh flower petals, some painted bright white up to the waterline with dark grey unfinished stone above cre-ating the illusion that the water is glowing.

But with Therme Vals hotel accommodation starting from $107 and spa entry only $17, as Zumthor says: "It's better seen than merely read about."