Clothes Free Travel

Floating in a Salt Bath, Naked, in the Pouring Rain

The spa culture in Northern Europe

I’d like to give three cheers to the people who get naked in the rain, who float unabashedly in the pools, and especially those who are willing to practice self-indulgence even in the midst of inevitable aging.

As we went looking for the outdoor pool denoted on the map — someplace behind the Italian restaurant — the rain intensified. Around the corner and through a narrow portico we discovered a salt-water pool roughly half the size of Olympic dimensions. Twelve-foot Statues of Egyptian pharaohs flanked each end of a fourteen-foot enclosure without a ceiling.

Given the natural buoyancy of the salt-water, one could hardly help but float to the surface. One girl near the entrance was holding the foot of each of her female companions to keep them from floating away. A few couples were locked in loving embrace, enjoying the cocoon of warm water, while twice as many others were clustered in friend groups chatting about — who knows what?

Dutch is all but indecipherable to me!

But oh… I left out one important detail…

It was pouring rain!

The water must have been about 36° C, roughly 97° F. That’s a pretty nice soak if you can manage to keep your body submerged with such a high salt content. Of course, if you submerse your head, you’ll get salt-water in your eyes, which is particularly unpleasant for the likes of contact lens wearers like me. But if you don’t submerge, soon you’ll feel droplets of water dripping from your hair. Expose any part of your body, like those two girls floating on their backs while tethered by a simple toe-grip to their friend, and you’ll feel pellets of icy water attacking your epidermis — in all its naked glory.

Strangely enough. Nobody seemed to notice. “Just a nice day at the spa with my unclad friends.” Who would dream of letting a rainy day become a wet blanket?

As I write this, I’m on another train.

This time, from Brussels to Paris. When we disembark at Paris-Nord this evening, I will say goodbye to my daughter and we’ll take the RER in opposite directions. She’ll head off toward suburban Paris. I’m going to CDG (Paris airport) where a hotel near that awkward, post-modern Terminal 1 awaits my early morning departure back to EWR.

That is so very far away from where I was at noon today. My daughter and I concluded our weekend research spa-hopping project; four stops in The Netherlands and one in Belgium. Elysium Wellness Spa near Rotterdam was our last stop.

Perfection.

I had been to Elysium about ten years ago with my wife, but this time, I was traveling with my 30-something-year-old daughter on a reconnaissance mission of sorts.

My wife loves traveling with me, and is a big fan of European spas… most of the time. But she’s not crazy about the sauna thing as her lean body responds quickly and viscerally to intense heat so saunas are out! And she’s not too crazy about a tepid pool in cold weather either.

We made an agreement some time ago that we would begin to double down on places we know we both love. There are so many! Too many to visit regularly even in a four-or-five-year cycle.

But I, being the meandering naturist that I am, can’t get past my insatiable curiosity for what might be out there awaiting discovery. So if there’s a place on the horizon that might be a future nakation destination, but I’m not sure if she’s going to like it, I do a recon mission to check it out ahead of time.

In this case, Elysium was one of our first spa visits when we were figuring out the whole naked bathing thing in Europe. There are way more options now than there were then, and Elysium has been the recipient of mixed reviews on social media, but I also knew they’d been in the midst of a lot of renovation as well.

Turns out the renovation efforts are paying off.

There were several new features on offer since my last visit, not the least of which includes hanging wicker chairs in the warm pool, a re-envisioned restaurant, and the aforementioned Egyptian salt pool that most definitely provided an “elevating” experience.

But more to the point, while I’ll post a more detailed post in the coming days to offer a redux of the clothing-optional spas we’ve visited in northern Europe, this particular story is really intended to be a shout-out to Netherlanders in general — if just to say… GOOD FOR YOU! You take all your clothes off, and you own it!

Slender and fit? You own it.

A bit droopy like me? You own it.

Performing poorly on the BMI index? You own it!

Past the days of wine and roses? Well… there’s this…

Along side that warm pool with hanging vines and dangling wicker chairs there are several ergonomic wooden loungers where you can sit and read, take a snooze, or just gaze out at the literal sea of humanity enjoying a day at the spa.

Between cat naps, I glanced up to see a couple pass by directly in front of me, perhaps in their late 80s or so. She was anything but svelte; he was looking road weary from a life well lived. His back was curved with shoulders bent forward over his chest. I think they were both completely naked, (though strangely, I don’t recall) as they were headed for the steps of the pool that laid out before me.

I sat up a bit to watch them enter the pool. There was a single hand rail on the right side of the steps, but I don’t think either of them bothered to grab it. The steps were sharp with tile edges that gave me pause as I had entered maybe an hour before. Once in the pool, the tile floor slopes quickly from a depth of less than a meter to almost two meters in the center.

I watched as they cleared the steps, wondering if I could lunge to help out if he slipped, fell, and cracked open his head on one of those sharp tile steps.

As they cleared the last step, a striking young woman was going the other way, coming out of the pool. I fixed my gaze on her eyes, as she was watching them as well, as if she was ready to catch the fall should it occur.

He didn’t fall.

She exited the pool, presumably to find her towel and move on to the next attraction.

Next thing I noticed; the elderly couple was floating in the middle of the pool with all the other happy spa-goers of the day. The water had made them weightless, and perhaps ageless as well. In the dim, dappled light, you could hardly distinguish them from all the 20, 30, 40 — somethings floating around in warm-water Nirvana.

It all made me think of that cheesy movie from the 80s, Cocoon, where Wilford Brimley discovers a pool of magical waters that makes everyone young again. But in this case, it was for real! Even if for only 20 minutes at a time.

I have a lot more to say about the naked spas in Europe, and will do so on these pages in the coming days. But in this moment, I’d like to give three cheers to the people who get naked in the rain, who float unabashedly in the pools, and especially those who are willing to practice self-indulgence, even in the midst of inevitable aging. They are the true heroes who are able to say, “This is me, in my skin. And I’m still very much alive.”

Tune in next week for more spa reconnaissance reporting. And just know…

I’ve got your (naked) backside!

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