As you probably already know, my husband and I went on a weekend break to Holland a couple of weeks ago. You could read already a post on Amersfoort in the tips ‘n trips, a post about our second day will be coming soon! But here on this beauty post I tell you more about what we did on the third and final day of our weekend getaway. This day was completely devoted to a visit to wellness resort Zwaluwhoeve in Hierden, Holland.

Now if you google this resort, you might see that the the score for this resort is only 2,7 out of 5 which is of course quite low. But this resort has been renovated completely and I noticed that a lot of reviews were written a couple of years back, before the renovation. Of course it might take some time to put that score upwards. Anyway, here you can read what my husband and I thought of it…

The resort opens at 10 in the morning and when we arrived at 10.30 it was really crowded at the reception desk. Fortunately there were 5 people working there, but we still had to wait about 15 minutes until we could check in. The lady that welcomed us was very friendly. The 2 treatments we had reserved via e-mail hadn’t been registered on our reservation, but could still be fitted in so no problem there!

After changing into our swimwear (we chose to go on a swimwear-day), we had a guided tour in the resort. This was absolutely necessary as this resort is really big. So yes it may have been very crowded at the reception desk, but once in the resort, everybody had plenty of space and we didn’t have to wait anywhere.

Zwaluwhoeve has lots and lots of different saunas. The ones we did were :

• infrared sauna
• salt stone sauna
• roses sauna
• lavendel sauna
• kelo sauna
• aroma sauna

But there were a lot more… you can see them all on their website.

The intention of a day at the sauna is that you feel refreshed and energised at the end of the day and not tired. To prevent feeling tired, we made sure that after each sauna we did, we cooled down in the plunge bath or under the cold shower and we relaxed at least 15 minutes before going into the next sauna. There were plenty of ways to relax… lying outside on a sunbed, reading a magazine in the lounge, floating in the outdoor swimming pool, warming up in the hot tub, having a coffee with a muffin,…

At the end of the afternoon we had our treatment. My husband had a deep tissue massage after which he really felt refreshed. I had a hamam treatment for which I had to lay on top of a warm stone table. The masseuse started by pouring warm water over my body after which she started scrubbing me. After the scrubbing, she covered me with hot soap bubbles (which smelled divine by the way!) and started massaging me with this soap. She gave extra care to my head and feet. To end this treatment, she rinsed me off with hot water. As a bonus to my hamam treatment, I was treated to a delicous cup of Turkish apple tea with cinnamon. I was totally relaxed afterwards !

To finish our day at this resort, we went to the restaurant to have diner. We had plenty of choice and the main courses were made à la minute. It really tasted well and it was the perfect way to end our visit to Zwaluwhoeve.

Those 8 hours had gone by in a flash and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Totally relaxed we could drive home… what a great way to end our weekend break!

Love, Kathleen

Why don’t you read the post on Amersfoort!