19 of the best luxury spas in the Mediterranean

Wrapped around a bay in Northern Greece with a marina for yachts up to 33 metres at the centre, the Sani Resort has five spas (with just a golf buggy ride between each). There is an extraordinary amount of treatments and wellness options for guests to try, all boasting luxurious products by Anne Semonin.

Guests at Sani Club can head to the beautiful Club Spa to unwind with a range of treatments, including Thai massage, Mediterranean salt exfoliation and Indian Shirodhara, among many others. Additionally, there's a couple's suite where you can enjoy a treatment with your other half. Bright, light and airy, this is an elegant space with both indoor and outdoor relaxation areas alongside thermal offerings.

The resort's newest hotel is the stunning Sani Dunes, which features the D spa. Here, guests can partake in the latest cryotherapy treatments, Xerolipo Bodysculpting, Opera LED therapy and a sparkling pink quartz exfoliation body scrub, among an expansive list of relaxing therapies.

Guests staying at Sani Asterias can enjoy an exclusive-use and fully-equipped spa, complete with two private rooms with steam baths and a couple's suite – this VIP-only spa is just one of the reasons to visit Halkidiki this summer.

The towering atrium that houses the Finca Cortesin spa is a soothing oasis, which boasts a 25 metre salt water indoor pool bathed in natural light. Mirrored doors lead guests to beautiful stone thermal areas with steam rooms, Finnish saunas, a plunge pool and the first snow cave to be built in Spain.

A huge range of treatments are on offer, from manicures and pedicures to facials and body wraps – don't deny yourself the indulgence of a therapeutic Thai massage, which will leave you feeling so relaxed you can barely grasp your post-treatment cup of herbal tea.

Guests can also make use of the fully-equipped gymnasium just around the corner and the three outdoor pools – opt for 50, 35 or 30 metre lengths to keep in shape while on vacation in this tranquil corner of Casares.

Best by boat: Superyachts can make use of the anchorage just off the hotel's Beach Club, tender in and take a private car up to the hotel, which is just 1.5 kilometres away.

With calming views out onto the gulf of Elounda the spa at the heart of Crete’s Blue Palace Resort offers 24 treatment rooms, three thalasso pools and two traditional Turkish Hammams. As well as its focus on Thalassotherapy, using seawater as a form of therapy, the spa offers a series of treatments using natural ingredients from Crete to improve your wellbeing.

Try the Traditional Cretan Experience, which starts with a relaxing soak in a hot tub of seawater at 34◦C, with chamomile, dittany and sage. This is then followed by a body scrub using a mixture of dried herbs, olive oil and warm honey before a final massage using olive oil, herbs, honey and raki.

Leave time after your treatment to unwind in the luminous relaxation pool which, during special spa evenings, is lit by candles and has a musician playing a grand piano.

Best by boat: Moor out in the bay, which is protected by the now deserted island of Spinalonga, and tender in to the hotel’s private jetty.

From the times of Emperor Augustus Capri has been a favourite retreat for Italy’s most influential. The draw of the island is not just its natural beauty and balmy temperatures but also its pure air and rich, health giving waters.

Located in the Capri Palace Hotel, and run under the guidance of Professor Francesco Canonaco, Capri Beauty Farm provides a balance of luxurious spa treatments with long-term medical benefits. The Beauty Farm offers the Metabolic Response weight loss program, the Clean & Lean method by Bodyism. It is also home to the “Leg School” — designed to give you the perfect pins the method has a celebrity following which includes Gwyneth Paltrow, Mariah Carey and Julia Roberts.

If you just want to recover from the stresses of life then book in for the three-day “La Dolce Vita” programme and truly embrace Mediterranean indulgence.

Best by boat

Capri is home to some of the most iconic Italian moorings. Simply anchor out and tender in to enjoy the delights of the Capri Palace.

This glamorous beachfront resort is the first phase of an audacious plan to turn a little-known but spectacular pocket of the south west Peloponnese into a rival for Sardinia’s Costa Smeralda. Explore Messinia’s secret islets and hidden bays on board the hotel's yachts, Carmen Serena and Carmen Fontana, with local crew recounting the area’s ancient myths and legends from the deck. The spa also references Messinia’s fascinating history. Its indulgent olive-oil treatments were inspired by techniques described on centuries-old clay tablets discovered at the nearby Palace of Nestor. They outlined the ancient Greeks’ bathing rituals, elements of which have been incorporated into signature treatments. These include Nestor’s Baths, a hydro massage in a therapeutic bath, using herbs from the spa garden, and the Healing Massage Remedy by Hippocrates that combines therapies described by the father of western medicine with cutting-edge methods.

Best by boat

Kalamata Marina, about 20 miles away by road, accommodates small superyachts, but if you moor in one of the quiet coves near the resort you can zip straight back to your yacht to explore the beautiful western Peloponnese coast when you are all spa-ed out.

What have we here? A spa with its own dock, so you can rock up, tousled from a turn around the lagoon, and hop straight on to a treatment bed. Built on a private island, on the grounds of a former hospital for respiratory disease, JW Marriot’s GOCO Spa Venice has fast gained a reputation as one of the best luxury spas in the Mediterrean. Clean, white lines, porthole windows and outdoor decks looking across to St Mark’s Square make it the ideal retreat from the crowds and velvet brocade stuffiness of old school Venice. QMS Medicosmetics is at the helm with its famous skin-brightening oxygen facials and collagen-boosting formulas. Guests can detox in the hammam, with its lung-cleansing salt wall, tone up in the aqua tonic pool with massage jets set to key metabolism-boosting points or wind down with alfresco yoga in the herb garden. It is the perfect place to end a luxury yacht charter in Venice or to recover after the Venice Film Festival.

Rocco Forte, who built Verdura, is one of the world’s leading hoteliers and this is one of the Mediterranean's best spas. Forte has also represented Britain at the World Triathlon Championships and looks 10 years younger than his 70 years. How does he do it? Verdura’s anti-ageing Vita Health programme is overseen by Forte’s personal physician, Dr Nyjon Eccles, an integrated medicine expert who will customise treatments according to your test results. Yachts can moor just off this rugged stretch of coast and ask for masseurs to come on board. On land, the glamorous spa flows from an impressive gym and workout studio, to a vast hammam and alfresco hydrotherapy pools that overlook cypress-studded hills.

Helicopter in

Anchor and take a helicopter in to the resort’s helipad. This coast boasts beaches, olive groves and ancient history, so stick around for post-spa cruising.

The nuns moved out a century ago but they still ring the church bell on your arrival at this heavenly spa hotel. Perched high on the cliffs at Conca dei Marini, overlooking the Amalfi Coast, the old convent is set among herb gardens that cascade down towards a wonderfully dramatic infinity pool; the perfect spot for eyeing the superyachts in the bay below.

In keeping with the ecclesial feel, treatments use Santa Maria Novella’s healing herbal creams and balms, originally made by Florentine monks for Catherine de Medici. The vaulted treatment rooms, in the old wine cellar, are cool and quiet. There, you can enjoy a herbal body scrub, nourishing bee pollen facial or maybe an Aloe Coulis body wrap that takes the sting out of sunburnt skin with manuka honey and ice poultices. Amen to that.

Built from scratch in 2011 in the style of a traditional whitewashed village, this place is pretty enough for French Vogue to book it as a backdrop for fashion shoots. Staff welcome your bambinos with open arms at one of the Med’s best kids’ clubs. Furthermore, it doesn’t close until 10pm, so you can park the progeny and enjoy a gaping, guilt-free window to hit the spa. Expect acres of buttermilk marble, flickering candles, soothing pools, toga-clad therapists and top-notch treatments (Aquann, the saline float tank, is one of the best legal highs available).

Best by boat

The 318-berth Cala Ponte Marina from Camper & Nicholsons has recently opened, just down the road.