Blogging
From Abroad

No ski day in the Austrian Alps would be complete without a late afternoon sauna session. Before I delve into saunas, let me first give a little background of my situation. This past week (the first of my 3 week Easter vacation) I was spoiled by 6 days of skiing in the West Dachstein region of the Austrian Alps. I paid a little bit extra for a nicer hotel, with nice breakfasts, dinners and of course, a sauna/steam room facility.

Sweat bathing facilities are popular all over the world, imitated from the Finnish, who have been using saunas for centuries. Our sauna was typical of traditional Austrian hotels (our hotel, by the way, dated back several hundred years!). It had a dry heat room and a wet heat room, showers and lounge chairs to cool off in.

I guess it is also important to note that Austria has strict sweat bathing requirements. For one, nudity is strictly enforced, as is sitting on towels on the benches in the dry heat room, as well as shared gender facilities. There is a sort of unspoken “sauna etiquette”, a sort of process to go about the whole sauna experience. It was quite interesting to notice the differences between American sauna sessions and European ones. The sauna was a pretty cool social establishment, always a nice place to chat about whats hot and whats not (ok, bad pun!). I won’t get into the health benefits of the sauna, but it was always a great feeling the leave the sauna much more refreshed than when you entered.

I look forward to trying more bathing establishments throughout the world. Hopefully I have inspired you visit your local sauna and relish in the traditional method of healing by heat!

Feel free to leave a comment if you can relate to the sauna experience, wherever you are!

Bye!