Altira Spa at the Arabella Sheraton, Cape Town, South Africa

For a city break of the pampered kind, Travel Writer Carrie Hampton suggests taking the lift to the 19th floor of Arabella Sheraton Grand Hotel and handing your body over to the therapists at the AltiraSPA.

Although the AltiraSPA at Arabella Sheraton Grand Hotel, is in the busiest part of Cape Town, you can look down on the busy dockyards and notice cars streaming into the city from the motorway, yet feel nothing but calmness.

Such is the influence of the high level AltiraSPA on the 19th floor of the glass fronted Arabella Sheraton Grand Hotel, that while the city busies itself, you can opt out. Put your body into the hands of massage therapists and beauticians, who knead you, shape and polish you into an improved version of your former self. And to achieve this, you don't have to do anything.

Lie back and don't bother thinking

Once disrobed and clad in a sumptuously woolly bath robe, youthful therapists lead you down a quiet corridor to a series of treatment rooms. These have floor to ceiling glass panels, that could disconcert the vertiginous. But any woozy feelings dissipate into something more pleasant but just as hazy, as you lie back on the treatment bed and have your head and face massaged with creams and potions to create a younger you. Nails are polished, feet are filed and faces are masked.

A more cosy, gently lit and lightly perfumed room was the venue for my massage, and I was oiled from head to toe and detoxified into a stupor.  After just a couple of different treatments during the morning, I became completely relaxed and couldn't even muster up a swim in the motionless pool, which has an especially long arm for swimming laps. I could only manage to sit amongst the bubbles of the 35°C jacuzzi and look out lazily over Cape Town, then drag myself between the steam room and sauna, followed by a well-deserved lie down in the warm water bed relaxation room.

Prudent diet!

The AltiraSPA philosophy is based on a 7-pillar concept; Beauty, Harmony, Vitality, Aqua, Life Balance, Nature and Nutrition. They took care of most of these elements, but the Arabella Sheraton Grand Hotel chef left me still hungry after their 'prudent diet' - as declared in the spa information leaflet, and I wished he wouldn't be quite so prudent.

Cape Town's Arabella Sheraton Grand Hotel AltiraSPA, proved to be so enticing that my friend joined as a member right there and then, and it has proven to be his retreat from city life, without even having to leave Cape Town.

The Arabella Sheraton Grand Hotel has a big sister outside Cape Town, on the Bot River Lagoon near Hermanus. The Western Cape Hotel & Spa on the Arabella Country Estate is renowned for its taste and style, and offers an award-winning golf course. The 18-hole 72 par championship course was voted amongst South Africa's top five golf courses (check this site for a separate review of the Western Cape Hotel & Spa).

© Carrie Hampton 2004. This article is written by travel writer and Southern African specialist Carrie Hampton, who is under no obligation to state anything other than her personal opinion. This article may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

Feel free to contact Carrie on: carrieh@iafrica.com or visit her website www.travelwriter.co.za