Lazy Day

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We started the day with breakfast by the pool. The midnight buffet was positively small compared with the amount and variety of food on offer for breakfast! There was so much food to choose from it was hard to decide what to eat. And really, really hard not to eat too much!! This morning I settled for some fruit, a delicious pistachio nut-filled, honey-drizzled pastry and a small bowl of muesli with yoghurt.

After breakfast we had a wander around the resort to familiarise ourselves with where everything thing is. With a better idea of how to find our way around, we returned to our room and changed into our swimwear, collected the iPad and the Kindle with our reading material on them and ventured down to the adult beach. That being 'adult' as in no children allowed!! The sun beds on the adult beach are huge, thick mattresses with giant cushions and beach bags to prop yourself up with. Luxury!

After we had been lazing around reading for a while, one of the resort staff approached us to make sure that we knew all about the resort's Spa & Wellness facilities. Basically he was touting for business, but since we had been considering trying a Turkish bath anyway we agreed to sign up for a Turkish bath, foam massage and general massage package for the afternoon.

For lunch we went looking for a light snack. The bar nearest the adult beach didn't do food so we wandered off to the next bar which only seemed to have huge meals on offer. People were sitting eating meals on plates twice the size of ordinary dinner plates!! I wonder how much they already ate for breakfast?? We eventually found the Tea House around by the Hawaiian Pool and ordered a couple of toasties. Boring, but enough for a light lunch.

We lazed around a bit more before heading off to the Spa & Wellness centre. First we had to strip down to our bathers and wrap ourselves in Turkish bath towels - which were more like large tea towels!! Then it was off to the sauna. The seriously hot, hot, HOT sauna. So hot I couldn't bear to sit on the wooden benches and basically hopped from foot to foot for three or four minutes before I had to bail out!!

From the sauna we proceeded to the Turkish bath room where we had been instructed to lay on the raised marble disc in the middle of the room. Thank goodness the marble was heated or it would have been freezing cold to lie on and I think I would have felt more like I was preparing to be autopsied rather than pampered???

After we had laid on the warm, wet slab for a few minutes the staff came in to bathe and massage us. First warm water was ladled over us from head to toe, front and back. Next the staff donned abrasive mitts and exfoliated us from head to toe. Then we were rinsed off with more warm water being ladled over us. By this stage we were laying face down and the foam was thrown over our backs. What a weird sensation - a bit like having a blanket of cobwebs thrown over you!! You could feel something settling over your back, but it had no weight to it all. Next came the foam massaging. Whoa, a soapy, foam lubricant rather than oil gives a completely different feel to a massage!

When the foam massage was completed we were rinsed again and then wrapped in towels and led out to lay down and rest for a few minutes before our one hour general massage. With my shoulder troubling me again since I stopped taking the Voltaren (and maybe the rigours of a 24 hour flight didn't help?) I opted for a medical massage. Bernie chose the anti-stress massage so that he would get a firmer massage than the relaxation massage. I wasn't sure about having a masseuse as my experience has been that women rarely massage as firmly as a man. That was before Betut!! Betut really gave my upper back, neck and shoulders a workover, while she exclaimed over how hard all of the muscles were ... and that was hard in a knotted up way, not hard strong!

After the massage, Betut suggested that she could do more for me if I would come back for some more massage with her. I was already thinking the same thing - a few massages and a bit less than eight hours a day on the computer and my back/neck/shoulders might feel better than they have in months??

Back at the front desk, Islam (who signed us up this morning) reinforced what Betut had told me about more massage would be good for me and offered to negotiate a good package deal for us. It is probably a bit OTT, but hey, this is my 50th Birthday holiday extravaganza so ... sign me up for three more massages!! And so as not to feel left out, Bernie signed up for two more massages. With the package deal taking the price down to €40 per one hour massage that didn't seem too bad. Not cheap, compared with Thailand, Cambodia or Laos, but reasonable compared with prices in Oz.

After a shower to wash all of the massage oil off, we joined Kath and Albert at the Central Bar. When we told them how we had spent the afternoon, Albert said he'd rather buy a new suit that pay what we paid for our massages today. But, if you don't need a new suit ... I don't think we'll mention the ongoing massage package that we have signed up for!!! After a round of drinks, it was into the Torba Restaurant to be confronted again with tables positively groaning with food.

With the rooms being pretty small, after dinner we headed to the upstairs Panorama Bar where we managed to secure a table to play cards. There were quite a few groups playing cards so we didn't stand out playing cards in public!! Although I think we were the only ones playing for money?? Bernie won Jo ... again! He was also leading at Blobs, but Kath finished strongly and pipped him at the post.

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