| 500 YEAR OLD BARN - SOUTH TYROL |
It's sunny, 70º F,
and it's the end of May in South Tyrol, northern Italy. Ron and I
have just finished a pleasant hike through green alpine farmlands. We
passed by 500-year-old farms, animals grazing, wooden bridges, a
mountain lake, wildflowers, and flowering trees—always surrounded
by the jagged, gray-colored and snow-peaked Dolomites. We ended in
the charming farm village of Fiè allo Sciliar/Vőls am Schlern* at the foot of the Schlern Mountain and seven miles east of
Bolzano. It also happens to be home to the famous hay baths that this
area has been famous for since 1902. I had heard about these baths
previously, and had hoped to experience them—I guess this was my
opportunity.
We stopped at the tourist information office, and I
inquired about the possibility of getting a hay bath. The nearby
Hotel Huebad offered them (€33),
and I could get an appointment right away. Ron had no interest and
was happy to return to our apartment in Castelrotto to do some work,
while I took advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
I walked up a hill to the old hotel which had a pleasant
lobby with a garden view; I sat down to wait for the appointment. I
was quite excited about this, and it didn't occur to me that it
wouldn't be a pleasant experience. After all, I enjoy saunas, and I
did like the one mud bath I had in Napa Valley many years ago.
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SEISER ALM/ALPE DI SIUSI
SOURCE OF HAY FOR THE BATHS |
Perhaps adding to my interest is the story that goes
back over 100 years and explains how the idea of hay baths came to
be: the local field workers who, after a hard day of work, would fall
asleep in the hay, and wake up the next morning refreshed and pain
free from the previous day's labor. This unique hay was from the
local Seiser Alm/Alpe di Siusi area—the same area where the hay for
the bath comes from. It is the largest high altitude meadow in Europe
and popular with skiers and hikers.(Refer to future post for our
hike in this area.) According to the hotel brochure, it consists of
40 different types of grass and flowers and it is harvested once per
season, between mid-July and early-August. Next, it is carefully
dried and stored.
It is time for my bath. I'm asked to remove my clothes
and lay down on a pile of hot moist hay that is sitting on a heated
water bed. Next, the female attendant covers my entire body with hay
(except my face, thank heavens). It is heated to 104º
F. The bed is lowered and then I am covered with a heavy quilt. It
is the hottest I've ever been—they achieve the goal of getting me
to sweat. The hay feels prickly and itchy on my skin and its earthy
smell doesn't help. I am miserable and almost quit before the
required 20 minutes is up, but I am still curious to see what the
final results will be. The attendant comes in a couple of times to
wipe the sweat from my forehead and, no doubt, to see if I am
surviving.
The twenty minute bell finally rings. She lifts most of
the hay off my body and has me get up to walk to another room. The
remaining hay falls all over the place—cleaning up this room would
have been almost as bad as the bath I just took. Next, after I
decline her offer of hot tea, it is time for a 30-minute rest which I thought I might enjoy. However, I still have some itchy pieces of hay
on my body and then she covers me with a sheet, a blanket and a heavy
quilt. I am still hot and sweaty—just less hot than before. Once
again, I count the minutes until I can get up and out of the place. I
thought perhaps a final shower when this was over would make it all
sort of worthwhile. Unfortunately, she told me to wait two hours
before taking a shower in order to get the most benefit from the
bath. This meant I needed to rub all the remaining hay off my sweaty
body with towels, and then put my dirty hiking clothes back on, which
is all I had with me anyway. Fortunately, I had a hat to cover my
less than attractive, wet matted hair.
I headed back to the apartment and waited two hours for
the much needed shower. That evening I felt a little better—but
not better enough to have gone through all that misery. The next day,
no difference. In thinking this through, the only way that I would
consider another one of these hay baths is if I were freezing cold
and hurting from a day of skiing on the nearby mountains.
*Interestingly,
all of the signage in South Tyrol is listed twice, one in Italian and
one in German. South Tyrol was once part of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire, but was annexed to Italy in 1919 at the end of WW I. Many
people here are native German speakers.
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| PASTURES ALONG THE WAY |
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| SOUTH TYROL |
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CHURCH OF SANTA MARIA ASSUNTA
FIE ALLO SCILIAR/VOLS AM SCHLERN |
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| SOUTH TYROL |
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| SOUTH TYROL |
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| SOUTH TYROL |
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