Turkish delight (Turkish Baths and Health Spa (Harrogate))

Member Name: masterchef98

Product:	Turkish Baths and Health Spa (Harrogate)
Date:	04/11/09 (17 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Clean, comfortable and beautiful surroundings. Very relaxing

Disadvantages: Not cheap and a bit crowded at times

The Turkish Baths in the spa town of Harrogate are in a beautifully renovated building, tiled and painted in a Moorish style and are centrally located (just down the road from Bettys).

I visited them with a hen party during a women only session on a Sunday lunchtime. They also have male only sessions and mixed sessions. Swimming costumes must be worn in the mixed session and the vast majority of people in the women only session wore costumes too.

On arrival there are cubicles to get changed in, these are warm, clean and dry, then there are small lockers to put your clothes in. Towels are provided (as many as you want) and there is also shower gel in the showers so you only need to take your cossie and any other toiletries you need, the lockers need a £1 coin.

After this you are shown round the baths by a member of staff, then you get started. First a shower then into the steam room, which is very hot and has strongly eucalyptus scented steam, then another shower and into the plunge pool. This is a pool about 10 by 5 metres which is very cold and thoroughly invigorating (if you can't bear to get in you can just splash yourself or have a cold shower - noone will force you in). After this you move through a series of three hot rooms, starting at warm and going to very hot. After each one you shower and go in the plunge pool. It may be a good idea to take flip flops as the floor is very hot, although there are towels on the floor that you can dash between. When you've finished there it is recommended that you spend 30 minutes in the relaxation room (normal temperature) to acclimatise back to the outside world.

I wasn't particularly looking forward to it but found it a very relaxing experience, helped by the setting which is beautiful and clean but not overpowering luxury. I'm not someone who likes to be too hot, but found all the rooms but the steam room OK.

The prices vary from £12.50 to £18 depending on when you go, we paid £18 which was quite a lot but were in there for a total of at least 2 hours, so its not so expensive that its not worth a try. They also do various treatments but I didn't have any so can't comment on that. They have a cafe which I relaxed in with a nice cup of coffee while waiting for the rest of the party.

The only downside was that they allow up to 60 people in at once. As it was a peak time when we went there were about that many people in and it felt very busy. There was always a queue for the plunge pool and we only just managed to find enough space to sit in the hot rooms, certainly not much space for lying down and relaxing.

Summary: Best to go off peak if possible, less money and less people!