Piestany, Slovakia - Spa Humbug - Piestany, Slovakia
Piestany, Slovakia
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Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Piestany, Slovakia
We've been jonesin' for some mineral hot springs. There's nothing more invigorating than soaking in some sulphur springs for a couple hours. This country is chock full of them. The problem is that over the centuries, they've built up large hotels and spa complexes around the hot springs and it's hard to take a cheap soak.
I guess we're spoiled buy the likes of Glenwood Hot Springs in Colorado, or especially Chico Hot Springs just outside of Yellowstone National Park in Montana. There, you pay about $10 to choose to sit in either a hot pool or a really hot pool. Cowboy hat is optional.
But Europe is a tad different. In Piestany, where a Roman Legion settled in to guard it's northern frontier, it's become a place for the 1 percenters it seems. Each time we tried to look online for places in Slovakia to go for mineral hot springs, we'd only find ads for expensive spa treatments or 300 Euro+ a night spa hotels. The book recommended this town for some day visits that won't break the bank.
We checked into our 3 star hotel next to a pretty, leafy park and walked to a couple spas. One of the cheap places was a pool that's closed for the season. It seems everything is on the "Spa Island" a small island in the Vah River. And it also seems they're all owned by the same mega-corporation.
The best we could do was an afternoon special at Hotel Irma where we could sit in a mineral bath for 10 minutes then switch to a mud pool which is hotter for another 10 minutes, followed by a "towel wrap." It was about 9 Euros, which is an off-season, afternoon special, but we wanted a lot more than 20 minutes in the pools!
But that's all you get here, and only if you sign a release. These places cater to the elderly, the sick, and Arabs. We saw quite a few elderly, sick Arabs. There were lots and lots of canes on this spa island. It seems it might actually be fantasy island where magic water cures all! The city logo appears to be a statue of a man breaking a cane or a crutch. We saw several versions of this statue in several places.
The thermal baths felt great and we found a nice restaurant in a string of reasonably priced restaurants nearby. The next day, we called another hotel and were promised mineral pools for all day for 27 Euros. We paid, changed and got in the pools to find they weren't that hot, and weren't mineral water. We made that mistake in Aqua City in Poprad and decided to get our money back. They told us that's no problem, but if we want the Balnea, or thermal mineral water, we had to check in at the spa.
Jeez. So we did and got another 20 minutes in a pool followed by a towel wrap for about the same price. All told, it took 3 hours to figure it all out and get our 20 minutes in. These hotels and spas are MASSIVE and cater to hundreds and hundreds of rich people every day. Their services offered vary from practical medical services (cholesterol checks) to the downright wacky (chocolate mud facial anyone?) They are definitely the largest employer in town and all employees wear white to give the impression that they're medical specialists.
What would a Montana cowboy do? I suppose he would ride off into the sunset to look for better offerings.
So we decided to move on after 2 nights. Our hotel breakfast was amazing but the bed was the worst of the trip so far. We could feel every spring in the thin mattress. Deanne could hardly sleep and had to sleep on the duvet. I know, cry me a river, right? But the spas and hotel were a disappointment and we decided to move on to another town. Hint to the Garni Hotel Anne Marie: invest more in beds and less in eggs!
I was in Budapest 9 years ago and had great experiences in their Balneas and one in particular was a public pool for all day and several pools of varying temperatures. But we're not ready to go there yet.
At this point, all of our clothes are dirty. We wanted to go to Brno, Czech Republic or another town, but it's trade fair month in a trade fair city and we couldn't find a reasonable room with laundry facilities. It's crazy to admit it, but getting cheap laundry in Europe is damn hard. Laundromats don't exist and some places charge 3-5 bucks per item to wash and dry. And clothes dryers STILL are relatively rare in hotels and hostels. Many people don't own them for eco or financial reasons and dry their clothes on lines.
So, we made the weird decision to go to Bratislava for laundry. We were close to the city, but planned on visiting it after we went to Prague and then Austria. We found a great looking hostel that had a washer and dryer onsite for cheap, and that's what we needed. Bratislava, city of laundry, here we come!