Amy Bould finds a spa break at Austria’s Hoteldorf Grüner Baum to be just what the doctor ordered.

The Hoteldorf Gruner Baum

Going underground on what looks like a toy train for nearly two miles in oppressive heat isn’t normally my ideal way of spending a Saturday afternoon.

Dark, damp and entirely silent apart from the sound of wheels on tracks, the train was taking me and scores of Austrians deep into the heart of a mountain. But this is all in the name of health and well-being … thanks to radon gas.

Yes, that’s right. Radon — the naturally-occurring radioactive gas which is considered to be a health hazard.

But not here in the Bad Gastein. Here, it is known as the miracle cure, relieving arthritis sufferers of pain for up to a year by inhalation therapy and apparently leaving those of us in fairly decent health, energised and invigorated.

Spa treatment

The atmosphere in the Heilstollen is unique, existing nowhere else in the world. Patients go into the mountain and the warmth and humidity elevates the body’s temperature to 38 degrees centigrade, increasing the uptake of radon, which accelerates cell metabolism.

A doctor’s visit to check blood pressure is required before travelling underground, and the doctor decides which of the four ‘stations’ — each has a different humidity and temperature — is appropriate for the patient.

After an hour lying naked in the tunnels of the Gasteiner Heilstollen, I was hot, dripping wet and dangerously close to claustrophobia.

But after the ten minute trek back to the real world, I found myself breathing deeper, feeling fresher than I had for week, with skin clearer and pinked up by the heat.

The trip was just one of a series of treatments during a spa break to Austria, in a valley around an hour’s drive from Salzburg.

Luckily, the trip to the radon caves was the only one underground, leaving me free to watch the clouds floating above the Bad Gastein valley during massages, facials and pedicures at the Hoteldorf Grüner Baum — a family-run hotel with an impressive client list and history.

Now run by the fourth generation of the Blumschein family, the hotel is actually a series of houses, expanded from its origins as a hunting lodge to a traditional country inn, offering homely rooms and apartments.

In the pool at the Hoteldorf Gruner Baum

In the largest, the Kosslerhaus, there are guest rooms, a thermal indoor pool and spa and the hotel’s own Shiseido beauty lounge.

Within a couple of hours of arriving, after the customary coffee and cake, I was lying flat out under the healing hands of Karina and her stamps.

Not the ones you lick and put on envelopes, but herb-filled heated pads used in conjunction with traditional massage techniques.

Staring out of the window on to the mountains, which were still topped with snow despite the unseasonably high temperatures in early May, I felt the stress melt away.

The Alpienne Harmonie treatment was a bliss-filled hour which started with a relaxing herb footbath, followed by a full body massage with the herb stamps. As Karina worked on my shoulders and neck, strained from sitting at a desk tapping away on a keyboard for hours at a time, I swear I almost felt my arms lengthen as she worked the knots free.

Even better was knowing that if this was the start, what more wonders could this spa break do for me in the space of 48 hours?

Day two saw the trip to the radon cave, but not even the apprehension of what kind of bizarre experience awaited me erased the calmness which had enveloped me along with the mountain air.

Inside one of the radon caves

By the afternoon, any plans for an invigorating trek alongside the hillside evaporated as I sunbathed in 80 degree heat on the terrace outside the indoor pool. No children, no noise, no phones, no computer, just sun and silence. Heavenly.

However, by the final day I did think perhaps I ought to walk further than from the room to the spa to the restaurant — but not without a massage first.

Whereas the first one started with a footbath, the second began with a Fango. This involves a special heated pack being applied to your back and shoulders before being wrapped in a plastic sheet and immersed in a water bath where you don’t get wet. The Moorland herbs in the pack encourages blood circulation, relaxes and cleanses the body and is followed by a massage.

Karina again worked her magic and left me invigorated for the 40 minutes trek down to Bad Gastein, a small, picturesque 17th century village well worth the walk back up the hill through the forest, especially if you stop for a beer halfway and look out over the valley.

A facial at the hotel’s own Shiseido beauty lounge saw me cleansed, massaged, and moisturised with my eyebrows plucked and even my toes painted.

I’m not sure that’s part of the official treatment, but Karina said she might as well have a go at the feet while the face was under a hot steam spray.

A radon bath was last on the list, about an hour before heading to the airport the next day.

I know you’re supposed to lie there surrounded by candles for 20 minutes, inhaling the steam from the hot water containing the gas, but I wasn’t convinced of its relaxing properties any more than Body Shop bubbles. Or perhaps that was knowing that real life and real work was looming on the horizon an hour’s flight away.

But that’s the beauty of a spa long weekend break at the Grüner Baum. It gives you something extremely rare — 72 hours to do nothing but nothing, to escape the rat-race however briefly, and be pampered within an inch of your life in the stunning scenery of the Austrian mountains.

By Travel Editor Amy Bould

FACTBOX

• Rooms at the four-star Hoteldorf Grüner Baum start from £101 per person per night on half board, based on two sharing. Includes use of the thermal indoor pool, sauna, steam bath and fitness room, transfer to the healing cave galleries, heated outdoor pool (summer), use of volleyball pitch and boccia pitch and mountain bike hire. Book at www.hoteldorf.com or on +43 6434 25160

• Shiseido treatments in the hotel’s spa start from £67 (55-minute anti-ageing treatment).

• Swiss International Air Lines (www.swiss.com/uk or 0845 601 0956) offer three daily flights to Salzburg from Birmingham International Airport (via Zurich) with fares starting from £282.90 per person return, including all taxes and charges. Business class fares start from £706.90 per person return.