Geinberg5, Private Spa Villas, Geinberg, Austria: One day in orient

The lather crackles, the water is quietly splashing in the fountain, the wooden shoes rattle on the marble floor. The scent of olive soap fills the room, it is perfectly warm and you feel wonderfully snug and cared for.

"It may sound cheesy, but after a hammam treatment, you feel like you were newly born", says Jacqueline Papke, SPA manager at Geinberg⁵ Private Spa Villas.

She has to know. The native German worked in Turkey and Egypt as a beautician for many years and knows the traditional cleansing ritual from the Eastern World like no other.

Luxury and comfort at Geinberg⁵

Luxury and comfort play the leading role in the 21 Private SPA villas. Each is equipped with a free-standing bathtub, Finnish sauna, steam shower, an open fireplace, an outdoor hot tub with thermal water and a jetty into the natural-pool. A Gault Millau and Falstaff rated restaurant and a private butler service round off the complete luxury of Geinberg5. If you prefer not to step out of your villa, you don’t have to. Ayurvedic and classic massages and beauty treatments can be enjoyed in your private villa.

Geinberg⁵ Oriental World

And yet that would be a pity. The luxury resort, one of very few in Austria, has an Oriental World with a Turkish and Moroccan hammam.

"Our employees were trained by a Turkish hammam master. For each guest an individual ritual is celebrated. While the Turkish Hammam focuses on the cleansing ritual, the Moroccan version centres around care – for instance with desert sand scrub from Marrakesh - and relaxation", explains Jacqueline Papke.

Unlike in an original Turkish hammam, traditionally a meeting place for people, in the Oriental World of Geinberg5 treatments take place in complete privacy in beautifully oriental-themed rooms.

Newly born

Relaxing afterwards on the warm star-shaped marble umbilical, you can feel a sense of comfort and safety that is supposed to remind you of the womb. And you really feel like you were newly born. The skin is silky soft, the smell of the olive soap lingers in the air and the ritual of the lather massage truly seems to lead to a physical and mental cleansing. A fairy tale experience not unlike the stories in A Thousand and One Nights.

Geinberg⁵ Private Spa Villas are a Member of Lifestylehotels