"When I feel I can't do it any more, I can do a little more" I don't know who said it first, but I know that I apply it and I say it to myself whenever my inner voice tells me that I'm tired and it would be better to finish now and leave it for tomorrow.
And the truth is that this "a little bit more". But little by little, I get into a state of advanced fatigue from which the most effective solution to recover quickly is a 2-3 day getaway to a spa hotel in a city or spa resort, with clean and healthy air.
I remembered a conversation I had earlier this summer with Csilla Mezosi, Secretary General of the European Spa Association, who told me about Aquahouse Ensana and he had told me that they have a spa, a spa center, thermal waters among other natural resources.
I had promised the boys a long time ago that we would have a stay where they could soak in the thermal pools for a few days from morning till night, but we never got anywhere.
We looked, the drive took about 4 hours. Perfect for a 3-day getaway.
So on a Friday in mid-December, I dismissed Edi from school and set off for the Black Sea from Bulgaria. The trip took almost 5 hours, but only because of the traffic in Bucharest. As soon as we got out of the city, Waze immediately recovered and didn't add, on average, 1 minute for every minute that passed.
We weren't checked in yet, we didn't have our card, and we didn't see a button. By the time we figured out what to do, the barrier opened.
We stopped the car right in front of the hotel, where the concierge was waiting for us with a friendly smile, asked us how was the trip, if we were tired, and then drove us to the reception.
Soon after, he returned with 2 glasses of sweet champagne. I was surprised, but the truth is that a sip of sweet champagne after the trip was just what we needed!
There were 3 receptionists, 2 of whom each had a customer, but the third was waiting for us with a broad smile. I handed all 3 slips and to my surprise, he handed us a long envelope, which aroused my curiosity.
Before Edi had a chance to look in the envelope, I took it and saw that there were 3 clocks in it. I looked at the receptionist and found out that it is a multifunctional clock: with it you open the room door, you add whatever you consume from the Spa, restaurant etc.
I thought the part about the watch instead of the card was brilliant. We always have a problem with camera cards, especially if we are only given 2. Either we keep them next to the phone and demagnetize them, or we forget which pocket we put the card in etc.
But this time, I had no stress. I could even get into the sauna with the watch (like at Therme). I even slept with it and didn't even feel it. But, it's true that I slept like a baby with them, I'll come back to that later.
We entered the room and the first impact was how big it is. With a huge double bed, and another extended double sofa for Edi, and we still had room to waltz around the room. The picture only shows part of it:
In the bathroom there was a bathtub and a shower on the other side of the sink:
And on a small table, fresh fruit was waiting for us, a box of candy and a bottle of champagne:
But what surprised me even more, was that the next morning, they brought us more fresh fruit, this after the night before, I found out that at Aquahouse Ensana they clean the room twice a day: in the morning and in the evening, and at the evening cleaning, we received 3 mini chocolates.
The room was equipped with everything I needed: coffee machine, tea, water, white towels for the room and beige for the spa, bathrobes and some very nice, almost fluffy slippers, for which I was grateful. If you've read articles written by me before, you know how cold I am, but those slippers really kept me warm.
In addition to all these elements that bring both comfort and pampering, what I will never forget is the body cream that was in the bathroom. The cosmetics in the bathroom are Private Label, Ensana.
For about 2 years, I started to feel my hands, face and lips very dry. No matter what the season, I feel the need to moisturize my hands, which was not my habit before. And when I say I feel the need, it means I feel deep discomfort if I don't. It dries me out, the feeling of dry hands stays on my brain and I can't concentrate on anything else.
On the other hand, I also can't stand the feeling of them feeling greasy or having a layer left on them that hasn't penetrated the skin yet. If it does, I wipe it with a towel until it's completely gone.
So far, out of all the creams I've tried, only a few of them penetrate the skin immediately. And I always have one with me, or rather, in every bag.
This time, I was surprised that this body cream went into my hands even faster than all the creams I tried so far. So I used it with great pleasure during the whole 3 days, and even now I still think about it.
When I came out of the hotel room, Olga, customer service, was waiting for me. Olga is from the Republic of Moldova and speaks flawless Romanian. I had met her at the hotel reception, where she had come just as we had received our keys and showed us to our room.
Before we got to the appointments, Olga gave me a tour of the hotel and a tour of the spa.
I am very bad with spatial orientation, and the Aquahouse hotel is big. Big enough that you don't feel how many people are in the hotel at the same time, even though the parking lot and the 3 restaurants were full at all times. But in the hotel itself, you don't feel it. There are whole areas where you can barely see 2-3 people, there are spaces so wide that I had the feeling of silence all the time. And I can't describe in words how much it helped me to stay in silence for those 3 days, how restful it is!
On the other hand, surprisingly, as big as it is, the atmosphere is warm. I thought a lot about how they managed to achieve this effect. And I came to the conclusion that the main reason is the people. They are so warm, with such sincere smiles, they made me feel that they were there to help me, to make me feel as good as they could.
But it's not just that. As it happened to be mid-December, Christmas decorations were everywhere. From Christmas trees and themed wreaths to the smallest details.
I never had the feeling that they were just decorative elements tastefully arranged by an interior designer. On the contrary, they succeeded in creating a fairy-tale atmosphere, a warm atmosphere, the feeling of living in a fairy-tale, and that went straight to my heart.
Practically right then, in the long hallways of Aquahouse, I realized how few days until Christmas. Somehow I knew it was mid-December weekend, but I hadn't realized it all the way through. This was like that, another little joy, bonus on top of all the others 🙂
On the site of today's new Aquahouse hotel, built from the foundation up, used to be Bulgaria's oldest resort for balneological, climatic and marine sanatorium treatments.
When they built the Aquahouse, they did so with the promise that they would continue the century-old tradition of that resort, that they would combine traditional balneo treatments with wellness treatments and modern advances in physiotherapy, because they understood that this was the only way to achieve optimal results for the health and well-being of their clients.
But they didn't just limit themselves to the hotel, spa and spa treatments. They put just as much emphasis on memorable hospitality - as I had already discovered - but also on the culinary experience, through the 3 restaurants, which I can't wait to tell you about.
Practically, at the moment, they are the only Health Spa Resort in Bulgaria where you can find both the peace and well-being that such a health resort offers, combined with comfort and luxury - all in the vicinity of a big city: Varna.
You can go for treatment, for prevention, or simply, as we did, for relaxation.
But while I was there, I wanted to see how the medical visits were going and I'll let you know how it went.
The hotel sits on 2 water sources: one of mineral water, and one of thermal water.
Mineral water can be drunk, but it is also used for bathing, both in mineral water treatments and in one of the pools. It's 33 degrees.
You can drink it from a tap. But unlike spas in Romania, where the water runs non-stop, the tap can be turned off. When you turn it on, you have to let it run for 5 minutes, and then you can drink the water.
Thermal water is 38 degrees, it's used in indoor and outdoor pools - much to my boys' happiness 🙂
In addition to these 2 water sources, they also have 2 different types of mud: liman mud and black sea mud - which they also use in both relaxing spa treatments and balneal treatments.
The main medical problems they treat with these 4 natural factors - mineral water, thermal spring water and the 2 types of mud - are disorders of:
In total there are 25 treatment rooms. They are the only spa where I found a room with 3 massage beds. I asked Olga if there were any requests for this room, and she told me that recently they had 3 clients from Romania, friends, who had escaped for 3 days also for relaxation, during which time they had spa treatments from morning to evening, all together, in the same room.
Both the spa and spa treatment rooms are in the same area and are decorated in the same way. In fact, the entire spa is decorated in a functional minimalist style, inspired by the natural shapes of the sea waves and the seabed.
For most materials they used natural rocks, stones, wood and metal, with little or no use of other materials.
In the Spa there are: swimming pools (half Olympic size), children's pools, baby pool, therapeutic pool with mirror - which I'll tell you more about in the next article, gyms (indoor and outdoor), yoga room, salt room, 2 Finnish saunas (one indoor and one outdoor which Edi was very excited about), aroma sauna, regular steam bath, aroma steam bath.
Here are some pictures of these facilities. Some are taken by us, some are from the hotel:
There are currently 9 therapists working in the Aquahouse Spa, but the number is constantly growing.
When I arrived at the spa, I also met Nikolai, the spa manager. He has a medical background, with a Bachelor's degree in physiotherapy, a Master's degree in physiotherapy with specialization in orthopedics and traumatology, after which he did various extracurricular courses and certifications in manual therapy (joint manipulation and treatment according to the Mulligan method), and a Master's degree in health management.
I have 8 years of experience working as a physiotherapist and spa (massage) therapist in various medical clinics and several medical spa centers.
The last 3 years he has focused on his managerial role. He leads a multinational team of 25 people in Spa. And he believes that this is actually his vocation, because he has never felt such a love and fascination for his work as he has felt in the last 3 years.
His goal is to make the medical spa center at Aquahouse Ensana the best in Eastern Europe by constantly developing and using the latest medical and balneological advances.
Their therapists do about 10 trainings in a year, about 1/month, except for the peak season in early fall when occupancy is high and demand for services does not allow trainings. The same goes for the 4 receptionists.
Impressed both by the 2 Spa receptionists I met during the 3 days, and by the 2 therapists who were in charge of the treatments we did, I asked Nikolai how he selects them and he answered that in recruitment interviews he looks especially at:
The first line of cosmetics are Bulgarian cosmetics with black sea mud, magnesium oil or liman mud.
The second line consists of products with Bulgarian ingredients, made entirely in-house, for beauty - for example, Bulgarian rose products.
The third line is Skeyndor, a Spanish brand.
And the fourth line is cosmetics from the high-quality British company 111SKIN.
As part of the development, it plans to launch an internationally well-known French beauty brand by 2025.
With 4 brands of products, the menu is extensive, so I had my choice of treatments. With Nikolai's help, I selected some as specific as possible, but there were still many others that I couldn't find anywhere else.
Senior Doctor, Svetlozar Dimitrov M.D. is also Chief Medical Doctor at the Aquahouse, and has over 20 years of experience in rehabilitation medicine and physiotherapy.
The junior doctor is Lora Ayetola M.D., who graduated in general medicine last year and is currently specializing in rehabilitation and physiotherapy under the guidance and mentorship of Svetlozar Dimitrov M.D.
They invited me to the office, where in a very relaxed and friendly atmosphere, I told a little about my medical history.
I climbed on the analyzer, right where the soles were marked. I gripped the 2 handles in my hands, removed my hands and the machine started to measure the body condition and characteristics.
All in all I think it lasted less than 3 minutes, after which Lola took the results from the printer and started explaining them to me. She speaks both English and French, but what impressed me the most was that she immediately understood that biology is not my strong point, so she explained everything to my understanding. I think a 7 year old would have understood what he was saying.
In short, it measures: body fat level, skeletal muscle tissue development and range, body water content and retention, bone density status and, last but not least, calorie requirements for maintaining a healthy body weight.
As I was already expecting, it would be good to work on my muscle mass, but the good part was that all the results are uniform, with absolutely no deviation.
They invited me to lie down on the bed, put a CardioWave medical device on my index finger, with which I again spent 2-3 minutes.
And this time, Mr. Svetlozar Dimitrov M.D.analyzed the results: heart and nervous system rhythms, nervous system type and how resistant they are to stress - which I thought was wow - resistance to atherosclerosis and heart-related diseases.
Here the results showed even better, and it became known that they have been doing 10-15 minutes of yoga every morning for years. I even discussed this topic with them and I was surprised how open they were to talk about yoga, but then I found out that they also have a yoga instructor who does various holistic treatments, different types of yoga classes and also does gong therapy.
I didn't get to participate in either yoga or gong therapy, but I've definitely put them on my list for the next visit!
Lola again delivered the recommendations to my understanding, with the results printed in front of us, and I understood everything I needed to do to improve my metrics and maintain heart and neurological health.
At the end of the doctor's visit, I received a list of spa & spa treatment recommendations, from which I did the Aquagym session on the 2nd day - which I'll tell you about in next week's article. The rest of the Spa treatments I had already chosen to be as relevant as possible, as specific as possible to the Spa at Aquahouse Ensana, because, if you have read my articles, you know that I like to try the unique, signature treatments of the Spa I go to.
It was already evening and I was about to enter the author's "Aqua Sea-Cret" therapy, which is actually a relaxing spa ritual with seaweed-based products.
The therapist, Leo, generally deals with spa treatments, especially massages and treatments in the therapeutic pool. But when all his spa treatment colleagues are busy, he also takes on some of the clients. That's how he happened to perform this ritual for me.
Nikolai and I had chosen the treatment because seaweed is part of the Black Sea's bounty and it was only natural to use it as much as possible in their menu.
The scrub she used is quite abrasive, so I told her I have sensitive skin, and she very gently spread it on my skin.
The smell was great. When I heard seaweed, I would have expected it not to be the most pleasant.
I found out that they removed the genuine seaweed smell because some people find it disturbing.
And the process by which they removed it includes 5 steps:
The aim of this process was that the final products (the scrub, the mask) should have an attractive scent that would delight the senses of the client who is undergoing this SPA treatment.
The mask is applied directly on top of the scrub for a synergizing effect between the ingredients in the scrub and mask.
It's like a gel-cream, which smells sensational. I could feel it immediately absorbed into the skin. Leo had started on my feet, but I couldn't wait for him to spread it all over my body.
When he finished spreading the mask, he wrapped me in a plastic sheet, over which he placed towels as tightly as possible, and over the towels, a soft, light and fluffy blanket.
It was interesting to discover that among the ingredients in the mask, in addition to seaweed and more, there was honey extract. The benefits of this mask are: skin pH regulation, firming, toning and has a detoxifying effect.
After about 10-15 minutes with the mask on, I went into the shower. With them every treatment room is equipped with a shower, so they can do any treatment in any room.
You already know I love deep tissue massage. I think it was the only time in my life that I didn't ask the therapist to change the ritual and do it the way I like it. And I didn't do it because I thought it would disrupt the harmony of the ritual.
It was obviously a relaxation ritual, even though seaweed nourishes the body and has many health benefits: moisturizing, firming, anti-inflammatory effect, anti-aging, regulates skin pH, tones and has detoxifying effect.
But for the first time I had the feeling that I could enjoy the massage the way it was done, with long, linear strokes - for relaxation.
And the truth is that it worked as it was intended to work.
I was curious if there is a standard version, or does the therapist have the freedom to tailor the massage to how the client feels. And indeed, it is an intuitive massage, where the therapist uses his or her own techniques based on personal massage style and experience.
The massage is also done with seaweed-based oil, just like the scrub and mask, and it too has a host of health benefits: relieving muscle tension, improving blood and lymphatic flow, boosting immunity, smoothing and firming the skin, anti-aging, anti-inflammatory and pH balancing.
Then came one last step, one I had never experienced before: he soaked a towel in hot water and put it around my neck. It was so relaxing to lie with that towel on the bed for a few minutes! The warmth of the towel seemed to amplify the state I was already in.
I came out of the treatment room like a butterfly.
I passed my boys who had just returned from the saunas and outdoor thermal pools.
At Aquahouse Ensana there are 3 restaurants. I've eaten in all 3, so I'll tell you about them chronologically, in this article and the next.
The first evening we went to the restaurant where breakfast is served. Here, dinner is self-service. Guests who opt for a half-board package basically have breakfast and dinner included in this restaurant.
"Too bad my stomach is so small"my husband said to me, more jokingly than seriously, at the end of dinner.
Truth is, we didn't even know what to choose. There were a lot of people in the restaurant, so I didn't manage to take pictures, but if I tell you that you can find everything there, you will certainly still not be able to imagine how many types of dishes there are and how many rows they are spread over.
Edi ate enormous. Maybe double what we expected. And we realized that if we could offer him such a varied diet at home, he would certainly eat much more than he does now.
After taking a small piece from a variety of options, at the end, after dessert, both Edi and I had another cheese supplement (or maybe it was cheese, we couldn't define it exactly) that had raisins in it. He likes cheese, I'm generally not a big fan. But this was very special and sweet. That's why I ate it even after dessert, and it was a pleasure to stay with the taste until I brushed my teeth.
I looked for it at breakfast, but couldn't find it. If you go there for dinner, I advise you not to miss it, it's a dream!
In next week's article I'll tell you about the second, and last, part of our experience at Ensana Aquahouse in Bulgaria: the Spa & Balneo treatments we had, lunch at the Italian restaurant and dinner at the Japanese restaurant, and about the walk on the beach at dawn.
Founder despreSpa.ro
