Les Thermes Marins de Saint Malo, France

I had barely touched ground in Paris from New York, when I found myself on a train to Brittany. I was travelling to Saint Briac Su Mer, a charming little village in Bretagne, France to conduct an Inner Silence Meditation retreat.

St Briac Su Mer

Coastal drive

Brittany is a beautiful combination of the sea, mountains, cliffsides, stone houses, sea gulls and yachts. Everything here from clothes to home decor is blue and white striped with splashes of yellow thrown in!! My sense of aesthetics was definitely inspired. No wonder Paul Gaugin spent time here painting the landscape of Brittany.

Where I was staying and teaching Meditation

While driving through the coastal villages I kept seeing signs for Thalasso Therapy everywhere. I knew that Thalasso is a form of French water therapy, but I had never had the opportunity to experience it. My curiosity was aroused and my hosts Catherine and Vincent quickly picked up on it and arranged for me to go to the nearest historical walled city of Saint Malo, which prides itself of one the largest Thalasso Therapy Centres in France. 

My hosts drove me down through the beautiful coastline of Brittany passing through towns like Dinard and St Lunaire to reach the historic city of Saint Malo, home to the rich and famous of France. The elaborate stone mansions overlooking the sea, the manicured lavish gardens and the marina with sleek yachts parked in rows, told the story of successful bankers, lawyers and doctors who have chosen this coastal area to be their abode of repose.

It so happened that Vincent was friends with the owner of this vast spacious Therapy Centre, which includes a hotel, residential facilities, restaurants, shopping facilities and you name it, its all there. The size and vastness of the centre was pretty overwhelming. Not only that, it was buzzing with activity.

Couldn't capture the full buiding in my camera!

The three of us were shown around all the facilities by the GM . This magnificent 50 year old Centre has 5000 sq mts of space for the sea water spa, with 80 rooms for individual hydrotherapy and physiotherapy treatments, 16 cabins for the Spa, 6 seawater pools and an amazing Aquatonic pool!!! The treatments on offer were countless and Im sure you would need to spend a few weeks here to try out everything.

We were first taken to the hydrotherapy rooms where several interesting jets and showers were activated for our benefit. She told us that the sea water that is piped into the therapy centre daily and is recycled into the sea after every treatment. A lot of the jets reminded me of the elaborate 5 star hotel swimming pools in SE Asia, where fancy water falls and jets are part of the pool entertainment! A fun and leisure copy by the hotels, I might add.

From there we walked to the Aquatonic pool. This a large pool of warm seawater with 10 segregated areas with differing temperatures and treatments, such as the counter current walk through, back jets, water seats, leg geysers etc. I guess from my layman's point of view it is a very sophisticated and advanced form of a jacuzzi!! But honestly one could spend a whole day here trying out many different treatments. The packages they offer are also done in groups of three or four treatments for a day. In between you can use the aquatonics pool or the steam room breathing in sea air!

Then of course you had all the tubs with floats and seawater treatments and the gommages, scrubs and wraps.

Therapists ready to get wet!

Whew!!! 

The whole place was really overwhelming in its offerings. There must at least 50 or more treatments in the wet area, the spa area and pool areas. Its like nothing I have been to before. Very very impressive.

I opted for a massage under the running jet hydrotherapy called Affusions Manuelles (General body massage under a drizzle of warm sea water) which is a swedish/californian massage done with their inhouse therapy products.

and then a more calming sea algae wrap called the Biocealgues. The seaweed felt soft creamy and pure and I was told it was full of natural goodness of sodium, calcium and magnesium. Carol my therapist, was experienced and gentle and knew English so it was helpful.

Me!

Well I'll say the place itself was full of new ideas and different from my world of Asian Spas. The body massage was lovely although I found it a little disturbing to have the drizzle and the massage at the same time. I guess I need to get used to having two things done at the same time. Definitely very interesting. The wrap was, as expected, very calming with pure seaweed applied all over my body and then my body being wrapped in a blanket while my skin absorbed the minerals and vitamins and the calming dim blue light turned from blue to green to pink!
After a while the algae was washed away by another shower while I still lay on the bed!

Les Thermes Marins has been around for 50 years with a complete knowledge of water therapy and wellbeing. I was very impressed with the whole set up and the healing work that obviously is going on as the place was packed with people coming in not only for pleasure but also for healing.

Recommendation: It would have helped me a lot to understand everything better if they could speak English!

My thanks to Vincent, Catherine and Jean-Michel Colleu, Director Thalassotherapie for making this interesting experience possible!

I love this painting of Btretagne! Says it all.