Babylonstoren, the renowned garden and working wine farm set at the foot of the Simonsberg Mountain in the Franschhoek wine valley, has launched a brand-new Hot Spa. This expansion of the award-winning Garden Spa is a serene restorative retreat promising an enhanced wellbeing experience. Surrounded by picturesque mountains, and with views over the farm’s famed garden and vineyards, the Hot Spa offers a large indoor-outdoor pool, salt room, sauna, steam room and two vitality pools, in addition to an authentic hammam and traditional Rasul chamber.
Featuring simple yet sophisticated design, the Hot Spa’s light-filled wellness space leads guests through to two circular vitality pools united by a 16-metre pool to form an indoor-outdoor heated water experience that can be enjoyed before or after treatments. Mosaic-lined alcoves with ice-cold running water create a refreshing contrast in temperature, encouraging blood flow to give the body an energising and refreshing boost. Nestled between the alcoves, a warming hearth provides added heat during colder winter months.
The Hot Spa also offers a steam room, sauna and salt room, entirely crafted from blocks of raw Himalayan salt. This sought-after natural mineral is known for its therapeutic properties and has long been used to lift mood and reduce fatigue.
Adjacent to the Hot Spa are the new hammam and Rasul treatment rooms. The hammam offers a unique interpretation of the ancient Arabian public baths that have offered both physical and spiritual rejuvenation for centuries. The space’s vaulted vibrant blue mosaic ceiling is a nod to this fabled tradition, while the scale has been reimagined to accommodate two guests at a time, offering total privacy and calm, essential for relaxation. Within its heated marble walls, guests can experience an uninterrupted, hour-long, private water ritual, beginning with a scrub before a choice of either dynamic stretch and massage, or a traditional soap treatment for two.
The new Rasul (or mud bath) brings a centuries-old holistic wellness experience to Babylonstoren, combining the health-enhancing properties of heat, steam and mud for radical skin nourishment. The Rasul draws inspiration from Babylonstoren’s own gardens, with the curved walls tiled in mosaics in calming botanical green tones. The signature Rasul ritual consists of a four-step process, starting with exfoliating and cleansing the skin, then purifying and detoxifying the body with a clay wrap, harvested from a local freshwater lake and rich in natural minerals. Essential oils, extracted from indigenous healing African botanicals, like Aloe ferox, geranium and Kalahari melon, have been blended with the clay to encourage the release of toxins and impurities. After the clay has been applied, guests relax in the steam room, allowing the heat and clay to perform their healing magic. Finally, the skin is cleansed and buffed, leaving the body smooth and supple, and the mind and spirit relaxed and soothed.
In addition to the new Hot Spa, the Garden Spa also offers access to the well-loved outdoor pool, available exclusively to hotel and spa guests. After treatments, guests can relax in the chill room, at the pool or in the bamboo garden, with a healthy lunch from the Greenhouse Restaurant and fresh farm juice.
HOW: Bookings are essential. Babylonstoren’s Garden Spa and the Hot Spa are open every day from 08:00 to 17:00 for day visitors, and from 08:00 to 19:00 exclusively for hotel guests.