The Indoor Pools

This past weekend Martin and I finally made our way to Vals, Switzerland to visit the architecturally renowned Hotel Therme, designed by Peter Zumthor, Martin had been wanting to check out the buildings and surrounding area for sometime…and after awhile (and a glimpse at a photo) I wanted to see the spa. So Saturday morning, we made our way out of Zurich and towards the middle of nowhere, on first a train and then a bus, through winding valleys with sheer cliffs, alongside a crystal blue river and found ourselves in the small village of Vals. With the towns’ buildings still relatively traditional, I couldn’t help to think that Heidi would have felt at home in this valley…of course, she might have been thrown by the new hotel and spa tucked away up the hill.

We immediately checked in, grabbed our wristbands and bathing suits and headed to the spa. Even with all of the hype and own expectations based on the one photo I had seen, I was still blown away by the design and space of the place. The building was structured like a large cube, built entirely of stone (for the sake of the story, let’s call it granite although it might have been quartzatine) and within the cube, were various pools ranging in temperature (freezing to hot tub style) and size (a closet to normal pool). But what made the place unique, was that rather than have the pools created by indentations in the open floor with guests entering the water from any side, instead each sunken pool was hidden and defined by floor to ceiling walls of granite and accessed through the stairs at the doorway. So at times, what appeared to be just a corner or side room, was in fact a new and hidden pool. With the sheer walls and hidden rooms, this place fully satisfied my childhood dream of flooding my parents’ house in order to have an indoor pool…it was awesome. And making things even more surreal was the one additional pool with access inside and outside (providing views of the Alps across the valley), separated by a glass wall with a 2’ opening… Martin and I spent the first half an hour just walking around the building, discovering all the different rooms and pools and finding the right one.

In case my accounting-like description has failed to help you visual the place, I have borrowed the following image from their website:

We left the pools only when our hands were well past the normal “old man/raisin” status (and after we were attacked by an older couple who insisted on making out as close to other people as possible…I thought they were going to ask Martin to join in at one point), but returned again before dinner and again the following morning. And while the pools were the main reason for the trip, our time outside the water was just as enjoyable: a four course dinner at the hotel restaurant where it was determined that at any given meal Martin consumes approximately half of my plate and all of his and in fact, the only aspect of dinner that I finish my portion is in the consumption of wine; after dinner drinks in the hotel lounge listening to the piano and discussing life’s random questions such as who would be more menacing in a street fight – Martin with his knowledge of kickboxing, or me with my purse/windmill technique – we had to agree to disagree in the end; and an after breakfast stroll Sunday morning through the little village and surrounding hills before heading back home.

The trip left me completely relaxed and with the desire to once again flood a room in the house for an indoor pool.