I’m face down on a hot wooden bench, in a dimly lit steam room. To my side, a large, hairy man dressed in swimming trunks opens the door of a deep stove that resembles a pizza oven. Inside, red-hot metal glows at 700ºC. He throws in a ladle of cold water, which explodes into steam. […]
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 […]
Forget the fry-ups and the beer. Here are six ways to sample the city’s more wholesome ways to eat, relax and travel around. But the visitor to Britain is more at risk. Every hostelry, from rural B&Bs to five-star hotels, offers the full English; at the former, you will be asked the night before how […]
I do love a good spa experience. A few days ago, I tried something new and exciting which I have never tried before. We visited Banya No. 1, a traditional Russian bath and wellness spa located in a quiet residential area, very close to Old Street. They opened in London in 2012 and have branches […]
I am not one for spa’s and massages but when I heard about Banya No.1 Russian traditional bathhouse who gives guests a treatment like no other of slapping you with leaves I just had to go along and check out their signature treatment parenie. I attended on a complimentary experience along with some other community […]