QUEBEC SPAS - EASTERN TOWNSHIPS
Three top spas in Quebec's Eastern Townships: Balnea, Spa Menthe Fraicheur and Spa Bromont.
by Victoria Stevens
Quebec’s Eastern Townships is just a little over an hour’s drive from Montreal along Hwy. 10, but a world away from big city life. A charming blend of New England cachet with French joie-de-vivre, the region of Les Cantons de l’Est lies in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains near the border with Vermont and offers lovely drives among rolling hills, pristine lakes, historic towns and pretty villages. It’s also a popular winter destination with downhill and cross-country skiing and snowmobiling.
And, it also offers a number of spas, the most famous being the award-winning Spa Eastman, a pioneering destination spa celebrating its 30th anniversary. There are some lesser-known spas worth visiting as well. Here are three we sampled recently:
Balnea Spa
Located on a hill in a private nature reserve, overlooking scenic Lac Gale, minutes from the village of Bromont-sur-Lac, Balnea is a day spa and a relative newcomer to the Quebec spa scene, but it is already one of the places for trendy Montrealers to come to recharge their batteries.
Owner Stephanie Emond, a self-described "city girl" from Montreal and husband, Denis La Framboise, spent $5 million refurbishing an old summer camp lodge into an ultra-modern oasis where mainly 20- and 30-something women and couples come to experience the many co-ed water therapies, followed by a variety of massages, body and facial treatments, yoga and other activities, followed by healthy meals and snacks in the solarium overlooking the lake.
A large, tiled hammam-style water complex offers three saunas with panoramic views of the lake, including a dry Finnish sauna and hot Turkish steam room. When you’ve worked up a sweat in the sauna, there are cold showers and an icy cold plunge pool to stimulate and invigorate.
Outside, you can soak in one of two hot tubs then plunge yourself into one of two ice-cold pools, one with a fountain of cold water pouring down from above. It’s a shock, but leaves the skin warm and tingling and you feeling incredibly relaxed and refreshed.
Instead of the usual New Age music, Balnea offers soft jazz and electro-pop music while you enjoy pampering in one of the nine treatment rooms. Ultra-trendy Ishi products made from Italian grapes and the Ayurvedic Abenakis line are used for exfoliation, wraps, massages and facials.
My treatment began in a room strewn with fresh rose petals and a tray offering a bowl of strawberries and chocolate and a glass of red wine. Following an exfoliation using ground-up grape seeds with lavender and honey, I was slathered in chocolate, wrapped in plastic, covered by a warm blanket and had a blissful scalp massage. The treatment ended with a light massage.
Prices range from $105 for a one-hour massage to $490 for a four-hour complete face and body treatment.
Couples massages and body treatments are also available starting at $210. Or you can just enjoy the hammam for $35. 1-866-734-2110; www.balnea.ca
Spa Menthe Fraicheur
As the name implies, the signature treatment here is mint, 31 varieties of which are grown and incorporated into various oils and creams by the owner, Annick Savaria, who opened the day spa in the restored 1904 Grand Trunk railway station in the quaint town of Coaticook in November, 2005.
She has 11 treatment rooms, each with its own theme and decor and a restaurant serving fresh, wholesome food, but what makes her spa unique is the fact that as well as a full range of spa services for adults, she also offers treatments to children aged four to 12. Most spas require clients to be 16 or older, but Savaria believes children need pampering just as much as adults do.
To that end, she has packages that allow parents and children to spa together. Mom or Dad get an hour’s massage while their child has a 25-minute massage followed by a footbath with fruits or a chocolate mousse foot massage or a fruit facial, then they make a healthy snack in the kitchen to enjoy together. Or they can soak together in an enclosed floating salt bath, followed by side-by-side massages.
The treatment I enjoyed began with a coffee scrub exfoliation, followed by a chocolate mint wrap and a light massage with mint-infused oil that left me glowing and relaxed.
Prices range from $48 for a facial to $220 for a half-day including facial, wrap and massage. Parent-child prices range from $30 for a 25-minute massage to $130 for an aromatherapy sauna and full-body massage for two for an hour. Visit www.menthefraicheur.com (the website is not yet translated into English) or call 1-866-949-3256 toll-free.
Spa Bromont
Located in the Pavilion des Sens on the grounds of the Chateau Bromont in the town of Bromont, Spa Bromont opened in 1986 with a full range of spa services, an oriental-style hammam and a juice bar with waters and freshly-squeezed juices.
For $30, you can just enjoy the co-ed hammam which offers a Finnish sauna, Turkish steam bath and heated benches where you can book a per-minute massage or scrub. Cool off by pouring cold water over your body from buckets or in several showers with horizontal and multiple jets of water. Outside, there’s a hot tub and a cold pool with waterfall and stunning views of the ski mountain nearby.
But, if you’re needing more pampering, the spa offers packages and a la carte treatments like massages, body wraps and peels, facials and hand and foot treatments that range from $59 to $194. There’s also a Vibrosaun bed and chair that use heat and/or vibration to soothe and relax and a Japanese mattress, a natural-fibre futon with magnets that rebalance your energies.
I had a Dead Sea salt scrub, followed by a clay wrap and a hydrotherapy bath with milk that left my skin feeling like silk.
Go to www.spabromont.com or call 1-450-534-2717.
For more information on the region, visit www.easterntownships.org.
Victoria Stevens is a Toronto-based travel writer and regular contributor to Travel to Wellness.