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Discover Banya No.1 in Hoxton, London, for a traditional Russian sauna experience. Enjoy Parenie, a venik massage, and plunge pools for ultimate detoxification and rejuvenation!

You will leave feeling a mix of blissfully relaxed and amazingly clear-headed, and sleep the sleep of the dead. If Banya No.1 doesn’t knock jet lag on the head, nothing will.

I left feeling completely renewed and bursting with energy.

There is a super steam sauna. It creates steam at a much higher pressure than normal saunas which means you can withstand higher temperatures more easily, and even with the traditional felt hat (apparently to protect hair and ears) it’s a good heat to wallow in, and the detox sweating comes fast.

The steam room itself is inside a wooden cabin, heated to 70 degrees Celsius and 40-70 percent humidity which allows you to sweat profusely and detoxify. You lie down to sweat it out in a little felt hat, worn to protect from overheating.

This traditional Russian Banya offers a difference in way of culture. Unlike convention saunas, a Russian banya is known for wetter and higher levels of steam making it easier not just to breathe but inevitably more detoxing. When you arrive you will instantly feel and notice why Banya is not like any other conventional sauna.

One of the main rituals of a Banya treatment is the Parenie with a venik, a leafy, fragrant bundle of birch, oak and eucalyptus twigs.

Banya No.1 energised my body by slapping me with leaves

If you were to find yourself, as I did, prostrate and naked on a bench in an infernal steam sauna, your face mashed into a pile of birch leaves as a hulking Russian banschik beats you with bundles of oak branches, you might question your life choices — which is precisely the point of the signature parenie treatment at Banya No.1 in London.

Anyone who’s been following Girl on the River for a while will know I am a passionate convert to saunas and their beneficial effects, ever since I raced in Finland a couple of years ago and a lakeside sauna session transformed me from a wobbly, aching, potentially-injured mess to good as new.

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Some days are cold and some days are hot… but the best days, involve a banya stop!

anya No. 1 has garnered a reputation as London’s most intense sauna experience. The spa counts Justin Bieber, Emilia Clarke and Kate Moss among its fans – in fact, Biebs loved his post-parenie massage so much that he asked the therapist to join him on a three-month album tour.

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