Health & Fitness

An Australian's first visit to a European sauna

An australians first visit to a european sauna.



Recently I had the strangest experience and I wanted to share it here to see what people generally think about it.


I am an aussie living in the netherlands with my dutch girlfriend. I had my birthday last week and my girlfriend announced that one of the things she had organised was a trip to the day spa to relax and get a couples massage together. We also invited a few of our couple friends along for the day just to make the day a bit more social.


I had never been to a day spa at all before and I guess I had my own ideas about what they were like. My first shock came when we arrived to check in and I was informed that you are not allowed to wear bathers in the spas or saunas, aka you must be naked. Apparently this is the normal thing in all dutch spas and my partner and our friends all found my concern very amusing. The change room was unisex so it had guys and girls in it and the idea is that you strip down, have a shower and put on a bath robe to walk around the premises.


I couldnt believe that such a place existed. The change room was pretty busy and full of guys and girls ranging from early teenagers to 70 year olds all just letting it hang. I walk in with my dutch friends (2 couples) and my girlfriend and they all just strip to completely naked while chatting as if nothing is happening. I must admit I did try and back out as I am a very shy person. However, I gave in to peer pressure and the clothes came off.


Once into the spa area I couldnt believe how comfortable people were with their bodies. Normally what I've heard about nude beaches is that they are all old men. However, this was different. On this day i would say the average age would have been around 26-27 and prob a 70-30 ratio of women to men. The place had 25 saunas and around 8 different types of spa or heated pool and they were all filled with regular dutch people. It took me a long time to feel comfortable about sitting naked in a sauna with strangers. It took even longer to feel comfortable infront of the people I knew. By the end of the day though, I felt pretty good about myself. I think doing such a thing has helped to no end with any body image issues I may have been having.

An Australian's first visit to a European sauna
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