SPA LIVING AT HOTEL VITALE, SAN FRANCISCO
by Anne Dimon
There are a number of little touches of “the spa life” incorporated into the concept and decor of San Francisco’s Hotel Vitale: things like dried lavender springs hung on guest rooms doors, water-worn river rocks worked into the design of guest room night tables, leaf-patterned lighting features, lots of earth tones, natural materials (including limestone soaker tubs), walk-in rain showers and an inspirational view of the Bay Bridge sweeping grandly over San Francisco Bay.
Then there are the guest room slippers. Place one slippered foot in front of the other and you know you’re staying in a hotel with a message. The top of the left slipper is embroidered with the word “Slow,” the right, “Down.” So, as a guest saunters around her spacious guest room or schleps herself down the corridor to Spa Vitale, with each step the message becomes a mantra for our exceedingly fast pace lives: Slow Down, Slow Down. Slow Down.
There are yoga and stretching classes, and the newest offering - life coaching sessions. There’s a gym too, but it’s smallish so guests get preferred access to two nearby fitness clubs. It’s all in keeping with the hotel’s mission statement: fast peace for a fast-paced world.
Opened a few of years ago to serve the traveller in pursuit of health, wellness and what hotel staff calls “luxury, naturally,” the 199-room, waterfront hotel is located in the revitalized waterfront area known as the Embarcadero. It’s right across the street from the landmark Ferry Building Marketplace also part of the area’s revitalization. The building is now home to all things culinary including artisan foods, shops, restaurants and a farmers market. It seems as if merchants – mostly local growers, producers and artisans – have been carefully selected to reflect a spa lifestyle. Foodies can enjoy things like olive oil tastings, nibbling on pieces of hand-made truffles or lingering over a exotic blend of herbal tea.
After lapping up the local culinary scene, the spa experience is a just dessert. Tucked into the penthouse floor of Hotel Vital, Spa Vital is tiny – just three treatment rooms plus the spa’s most distinguishing feature – a roof top “treatment room” minus walls and with only the sky for a ceiling. Behind a screen of potted bamboo plants my bath is being drawn. Spa clients who book The Bathing Ritual ($60 for 25 minutes) are given the choice of enjoying a lavender bath for balance, tangerine to rejuvenate, rosemary to refresh and goat’s milk to awaken the senses. Goat’s milk please. I’m offered an herbal tea and cool cucumber compresses for my eyes. The dare devil in me erupts as I shed my robe and step into the foamy white bath water spilling over the tub into a cedar casing. There is something oddly liberating about having a bath on a hotel rooftop while imagining the dozens of people in nearby office buildings who, except for the forest of bamboo that surrounds this deep, multi-jet tub, would be within eyeshot of a body soaking away its stresses. The sun on my face and the wind on my skin is a connection with nature – urban style. Within arms reach there are chilled towels and a pitcher of iced water. This bath en-plein-air is followed by a massage – Swedish mixed with a little Shiatsu, a little Thai.
Just off the lobby at Americano, a swish scene where the Italian cuisine flirts with Californian, it may seem incongruent that a hotel focusing on health and wellness is also home to one of the city’s hot spot restaurant/lounges but, then again, maybe not. When it comes to the pursuit of “slowing down,” each to his own.
For more information:
Hotel Vitale: www.hotelvitale.com
Ferry Building Marketplace: www.ferrybuildingmarketplace.com
San Francisco Tourism: www.onlyinsanfrancisco.com
- Anne Dimon is a freelance writer and founder/editor of www.traveltowellness.com