The Imperial Palace ... and a swim at their Crystal Spa. Even from the names you can tell that this is a high-level experience. The Palace is the highest end hotel in Annecy, and it is by the lake. It is a nicely renovated classic building from 1912. Even the smallest rooms can run up to 700 € per night at busy times, though we stayed here for much less, on a very nice day but with less crowds. Crystal Spa is their spa facility. Much recommended!
The spa has a Finnish sauna, a Turkish bath, and a nice glass-walled pool with water jets on one end. There's also relaxation areas and multiple different showers, an ice pile to rub yourself with some nice cool ice pellets, etc.
I liked their special showers quite a bit, with misty rain and color lights. But my favourite was the sauna, it was just the right temperature and materials for a Finnish sauna. Not too mild, not too hot, nicely warm wood on the seats and on the back support, could lay down on your towel if you want, etc.
The pool looked spectacular of course as you can see from the photos, but it was also warm, so you didn't feel like having to take a cold plunge when getting in, like it sometimes is in other hotel pools. Warm is good!
The windows from the spa area are directly towards the park and the lake, you feel like you are in the nature already.
A time slot needs to be booked at the spa to get there, even if you are a hotel guest. The slots are one hour long, I think, and you can choose to get either a slot where kids are or are not allowed in. A maximum of thirty people can come in at any one time.
Links: the hotel's own page, spa's page,
City views:
The spa pool:
The sauna:
And here's a view from the hotel rooms on the side of the hotel. We had a partial view room, some rooms have city views and the best ones would have head-on view to the lake:
For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! And of course the Planetcaver, and
This article was originally published in the Planetskier Blogspot article series.
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