Queen of Retreats founder Caroline Sylger Jones and her team explore spas of all kinds around the globe. This week it’s the Corinthia Hotel in London
One of my favourite spa hotels in London: the spectacular Corinthia is beautifully located at Whitehall Place – near the Thames for river walks, a delightful flower-filled park for a gentle amble and both the National Gallery and South Bank Centre for a spot of art and culture therapy.
They’ve introduced a range of inventive mindfulness treatments
Here is the home of the glamorous and effective ESPA Life at Corinthia, a luxury spa with clotted-cream shiny marble walls and floors surfaces on three levels which has a genuinely holistic approach to living. They’ve introduced a range of inventive mindfulness treatments dedicated to helping you unwind a busy mind whilst also attending to your body.
These include a Mindful Facial, a Mindful Massage and a Mindful Sleep experience – the latter, for example, is a two hour treatment with personalised hot stone massage, therapeutic scalp massage, breathing and visualisation techniques. You can also book a range of indulgent ESPA face and body therapies for relaxation and pampering, as well as Traditional Chinese Medicine, Physiotherapy, Craniosacral therapy and reflexology, personal training and Margaret Dabbs manicures and pedicures.
You can stand in front of the jet for backs and bums while you admire the flames of the central fire
You’ll want to spend as much time as possible in the sleek black thermal suite, which has a nine metre pool for gentle stretching and short lengths with soft white daybeds down one side and a large hydrotherapy pool. Here, the strongest jet for backs and bums is the second from the left, which you can stand in front of while you admire the flames of the central fire (which is faux, but no less soul-warming for it). There’s also a gigantically impressive sauna, a steam room and some very soothing heated marble loungers to fall asleep on after your heat circuit.
You can also work out in the gym and get your hair cut at the Daniel Galvin hair salon, where on my latest visit manager Alex put my hair up beautifully using natural American Oribe products. If you’re looking for a super quick-fix therapy during a busy day, come here too for the nourishing ESPA Hair Ritual, which includes a deeply conditioning treatment with ESPA’s Purifying Shampoo and Conditioner, a head massage, a heat treatment to push the conditioner deeper into your roots and a powerful pressure point massage using ESPA’s Pink Hair and Scalp Mud.
The sound proofing is brilliant at night so you don’t hear the city outside
Upstairs in the hotel, the central light-flooded atrium is a wondrous place for drinks and afternoon teas – wander to the flower room to breathe the heady fragrance of roses and lilies before a meeting. Bedrooms gleam with style – our double had neutral walls, a smart racing green bed cover and cushions and pink-glass-based lamps with a magically huge all-white marble bathroom and ESPA toiletries for us to use. The sound proofing is brilliant at night, so you don’t hear the city outside, but we especially like the tranquil courtyard-facing rooms with Juliet balconies for total peace.
I ate succulently cooked dover sole parcels with broccoli mash
There’s an elegant bar made for life changing talks and two elegant restaurants, including the Italian Massimo, which offers friendly, dynamic waiting staff, olive oil to die for and deliciously cooked meals which on my latest visit included a stunning artichoke-focused starter and succulently cooked dover sole parcels with broccoli mash. There’s also a spa lounge menu for health-driven meals or, on room service, an inventive Brain Power Menu, from which I ordered a tasty superfood salad, organic salmon and green mango carpaccio and a guilt-free desert of coconut tapioca, papaya and lemon balm. Lush.
Doubles at the Corinthia Hotel start from £280 per night at corinthia.com, for more info on the spa see espalifeatcorinthia.com.
For more wellness travel ideas check out Caroline’s brilliant site Queen of Retreats at www.queenofretreats.com
Caroline Sylger Jones
is an author and freelance journalist who travels the world checking out spas, retreats and healthy holidays for international newspapers, glossy magazines and websites. She is the founder and director of wellness travel site Queen of Retreats.
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