Want to stay overnight in Amsterdam and relax in a wonderful wellness center? You can at Van der Valk Hotel Amsterdam Zuidas. In addition to saunas, our wellness center offers a variety of wellness experiences to ensure you can completely unwind. Read all about the different wellness experiences at the Amsterdam Zuidas wellness hotel here.
In our wellness center, you’ll find several foot baths. Foot baths have been part of European sauna culture for centuries and became popular in the 19th century thanks to a German priest who used water therapy to stimulate blood circulation.
A warm foot bath dilates the blood vessels in the feet and lower legs, which stimulates blood flow. This helps the body distribute heat more effectively. After a sauna, a lukewarm or warm foot bath can help restore the body’s temperature to a balanced state.
Nowadays, foot baths are primarily used before a sauna session to gently warm up the body and allow heat to gradually spread throughout it. They are also used after a sauna session to gradually normalize blood flow. In addition, they naturally serve as a relaxing moment of rest between sauna sessions.
You can cool off after a sauna session in our ice-scrub zone (ice room). This practice has its origins in traditional Scandinavian and Russian sauna cultures, where cooling off after a sauna session is an essential part of the wellness ritual. Whereas snow, ice-covered lakes, or cold outdoor air were used in the past, today an ice room filled with finely crushed ice is used.
After a sauna session, the ice can be gently rubbed over the skin. The intense cold helps the body cool down, refreshes the skin, and provides a pleasant contrast to the heat of the sauna. This gives you an invigorating and refreshing feeling of renewed energy and vitality. It can also help close the pores after the heat of the sauna.
Step under a gentle, warm stream of rain and let the day’s stress literally wash away. A walk-in rain shower offers a luxurious shower experience in which a wide showerhead allows the water to cascade down your body like a gentle rain shower. Rain showers are often associated with wellness because of their even water distribution.
The rain shower is ideal as a refreshing start to the day or as a soothing moment at the end of your sauna visit.
Experience the power of cold water with the bucket shower. For centuries, sauna-goers have cooled their bodies down after the heat with cold water from a bucket. It’s no coincidence that the term “bucket shower” is synonymous with this practice. Today, it’s a popular feature in our wellness centers.
A wooden bucket hangs above the user, constantly refilling itself with cold water. Pulling on a cord or lever tips the bucket, and a powerful stream of cold water flows over the body. This quickly cools the body, provides a refreshing and energizing sensation, and gradually brings the body temperature back to normal.
The bucket shower provides a contrast between hot and cold, which completes the sauna experience.
