Our spa expert shares the the most rejuvenating retreats to have on your radar, including salt caves in Sussex, hot springs in the Azores and Arctic baths in Sweden

We’ve come a long way from the days when the level of pampering most hotels offered was a bubble bath for a long soak after a country walk. These days hotels have whole floors dedicated to spa-ing, with hydrotherapy pools, Himalayan salt chambers, infrared saunas, cutting-edge foam-room therapies and facials that can knock ten years off your complexion in 60 minutes. Some UK country houses are kitted out with elite gyms that have the same fitness equipment that top athletes such as Cristiano Ronaldo use to stay on top of their game; in France, you can find traditional wine estates with indulgent spas; in retox capitals such as Ibiza there are detox retreats. Whatever side order — pampering or medical — you’d like on your spa menu, there’s somewhere in Europe that can deliver it in style.

12. Octant Furnas, Azores, Portugal

Portugal’s Atlantic islands are thrillingly untamed, with pea-green mountain peaks scored with silver waterfalls and beaches as bone white as the Caribbean’s. They also have Europe’s highest concentration of thermal waters and at Furnas on Sao Miguel, the main island of the nine in the Azores archipelago, things get steamy. The island’s soil is so hot that locals bake stews by burying them in the ground — and this spa is the place to stew yourself in style. Its indoor and outdoor pools, Turkish bath and hydrotherapy circuit are all fed by iron-rich thermal springs and products are based on the local larder, with Gorreana green tea, hydrating seaweed, exfoliating sea salt and cleansing clay muds.

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Fonte: The Times