What Norway’s naked mega-spa is like to visit: a prudish Brit strips off for a ‘hugely liberating’ experience
- The Well, a luxury 104-room hotel in Norway, has Scandinavia’s largest spa and also the only one where nudity is de rigueur in the saunas and steam rooms
- While the space is enormous, the areas feel intimate and safe, with mood lighting and corridors, dividing walls and smaller rooms, so you never feel vulnerable
It feels rather odd to be packing a suitcase for a weekend spa break – and deliberately leaving out a swimsuit.
At least, for some it is strange. For European spa-goers hailing from Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium and France, as well as Swedes, Finns, Japanese and Turks, going completely naked in a public spa is entirely acceptable. In many bathhouses, it is mandatory.
Traditionally, hygiene is given as the main reason: if you are alternating between sweating in saunas and dipping into pools over the course of several hours, it is considered more hygienic to sit naked on a towel than in a dripping-wet swimsuit – which then traps sweat, and introduces bacteria into the pool during the next dip.
This is the explanation André Julseth is giving me. He’s general manager of The Well, a luxury 104-room hotel located in the forests of Sofiemyr, outside Oslo, Norway.
It has the largest spa in Scandinavia and also the only one in Norway where nudity is de rigueur in the saunas and steam rooms.
There are exceptions. You can buy and wear the hotel’s branded anti-wicking swimwear in the pools, though you must remove it for the saunas and steam rooms.
