From Monaco to Bodrum the Mediterranean is full of hotspots that attract some of the largest private superyachts and the most expensive luxury yachts for charter. Thankfully, the Mediterranean is also home to some of the world’s best spas. So after a long week of socialising at some top Mediterranean party destinations, hop off your yacht and enjoy a spot of pampering.
1. The Opium Health Spa, Elysium Hotel, Cyprus
From a bright and contemporary reception area with a Grecian mosaic at one end, stroll down the stone-floored corridor to the vast indoor pool, which is surrounded by comfy loungers and lies adjacent to a Jacuzzi, sauna and steam room, perfect for an afternoon of relaxation after a stint in the fully-equipped gymnasium. Opt for a Pilates class with the charming in-house personal trainer to help improve your posture and core strength.
For the main pampering event, retire behind a curved wooden wall into the Balinese styled relaxation lounge, a quiet spot to enjoy a cup of herbal tea and a book before your treatment. Begin with an ESPA full body Balinese massage and enjoy 80 minutes of muscle unravelling by way of warm essential oils and hot stones — be sure to say what pressure you prefer, though a stronger massage will leave you feeling light and extremely relaxed. To add to your experience, opt for a restorative mud wrap to leave your skin feeling smooth and rejuvenated.
Best by boat: Superyachts up to 110 metres can moor at the Limassol Marina on the southern coast of the island.
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.
Resplendent on the 43rd floor of this slick beachfront hotel — just one floor from the top — the views of the city from 43 The Spa are staggering indeed. The treatments are spine-tinglingly good, too. Kick-start the proceedings with a circulation-boosting whirl around the circuit of vitality pools, steam rooms and ice fountains. Then switch the chromotherapy mood lighting to a soothing blue before you sample the wickedly indulgent spa treats from Natura Bissé, Spain’s most innovative skincare brand. Everything here looks tempting, but if you sign up for only one treatment, make it the 43 Sea Experience. The therapist uses deep-tissue chiropractic techniques followed by pressure manoeuvres with small sea shells. It’s so relaxing most people struggle to stay awake.
Best by boat
After completing an €80 million development in 2014 a further expansion is underway at OneOcean Port Vell in Barcelona, which can accommodate yachts up to 190 metres. Its central location makes it perfect if you are planning to spend 24 hours away from your superyacht in Barcelona.
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.
There really is nowhere else quite like this place: a 15th century fishing village built on a tiny islet that rises out of the sparkling Adriatic Sea. Its cute cottages have been converted to five-star hotel suites and, across on the mainland at Aman’s Villa Miločer, is one of the best luxury spas in the Mediterranean, with a heated indoor/outdoor swimming pool and treatment rooms with fireplaces for cosy winter pampering. Therapists make full use of the herbs that grow wild along this rugged coastline to create restorative massages that are heavenly scented with local valerian, sage, thyme and lavender. You can moor in the nearby Bay of Kotor at the Adriatic’s superyacht capital, Porto Montenegro, which has ambitions to become as important as Saint-Tropez and Porto Cervo on the Mediterranean yachting calendar.
*Best by boat *
Superyacht Heaven Porto Montenegro has 400 berths ranging up to 180 metre and a huge range of facilities. Yachts often anchor off Villa Milocer and tender into its pier, or to the pier on Sveti Stefan island.
Located on the north coast of the Bodrum Peninsula, a destination that’s currently sizzling hot with superyacht owners, this resort is a great choice for families. Rooms are big enough for bounding, the restaurant has a sweet shop, there’s a dedicated children’s pool, playgrounds and the MiniMO Panda Club, which will entertain your four to 12 year olds. If you book the VIP sea-facing apartment, which features its own hammam, sauna and spa pool, you might even raise a smile from that sulky teenager. The luxury spa offers a myriad of treatments using olive oil, local pumice stone, honey and herbs from the resort’s organic garden. If you venture out for some adult time, head for the grand, white marble hammam. A Turkish delight: you’ll be laid on warm stone, brushed with soft muslin until you’re heaped with cloud-like piles of bubbles, gently scrubbed and massaged. You might even forget you have a family.
This award-winning clinic offers a full medical menu in a warm and pampering environment that feels rather more caring than clinical. There’s revolutionary work going on here and you can be one of the first to try pioneering cognitive stimulation. It uses electrodes to monitor brain activity, identify weakness and prescribe exercises to strengthen key neural pathways for protection against early dementia and Alzheimer’s. If getting a good night’s sleep is the problem, check into the specialist clinic to reset your body’s biorhythms through a programme of meditation, acupuncture and nocturnal polygraphs. General health is boosted with intravenous vitamin drips as well as macrobiotic cookery classes in the chef’s studio.
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.
There’s no better place to avail yourself of age-defying know-how than at this sexy space-age Saint-Tropez bolt-hole. Add in the country’s first Crème de la Mer spa and you have an unbeatable formula. The skincare brand’s success is centred around its Miracle Broth, made from sea kelp treated with light and sound to intensify their potency. The results can be astonishing. The food here is all about stripping out unnecessary sugar and fat. Don’t worry: that tastes a whole lot better than it sounds in dishes such as celeriac mousse followed by coffee parfait.
Helicopter in
Port de Saint-Tropez, just north, accommodates 100 visiting yachts, but those over 70m must drop anchor out of port. Helicopter facilities are at La Ramatuelle.
After the energy-zapping fluster of the Côte d’Azur, the green hills of Grasse are a rejuvenating haven. This Shiseido Spa is housed at the Hôtel Le Mas Candille in the medieval village of Mougins, 10 minutes from Cannes – and it brings the latest Japanese-inspired anti-ageing treats to brighten skin and undo the sins of sun worship. Indeed, as you cross the spa’s ornamental bridge you can feel your frown unfurrow. All the treatments use the Qi method: a traditional Oriental philosophy that aims to restore the vital energy that runs through the body. The Future Solution LX Facial Ceremony, which uses ingredients ranging from pearl to green tea and star fruit, involves a number of delicate steps, from exfoliation to light steaming with Oshibori hot towels and a firming face massage. And there’s the excellent Shiseido boutique, which sells hard-to-find specialist anti-ageing creams and Serge Lutens fragrances.
Resembling a luxury spaceship hovering over Port Hercules, this massive spa is a suitably cutting-edge place to rejuvenate after the Monaco Grand Prix or Monaco Yacht Show. There’s a spectacular pool and a sprawling gym, both of which overlook the clutch of superyachts far below, but the must-have experience here is cryotherapy. Used in the sporting world to help speed athletes’ recovery, clients brave a cold sauna (at -110C) for three minutes, wearing protective socks, gloves and not much else. This is not for the panic-inclined but it’s worth gritting your teeth for the serotonin-induced marathon runner glow. Kiss insomnia, jet lag and muscle inflammation goodbye and rejoice in your newly glowing skin. The less intrepid can enjoy elaborate pampering, too. Don’t miss the Absolute Youth Experience, with its mother-of-pearl powder body peel and series of massages and scented baths. Cleopatra would certainly have approved.
A 10 minute tender ride from Puerto Banús harbour, Puente Romano is a palm-fringed oasis set in gardens brimming with orange trees, open cabanas and swings that gently rock to the rhythm of the ocean. Treatments at its Six Senses Spa have a wonderfully Mediterranean flavour thanks to the Organic Pharmacy’s uplifting orange blossom therapies, while the spa itself exudes typical Andalucian charm with its hand-painted tiles and natural stone and timber.
The focal point here is the splendid wet area, where you can relax in the perfectly ergonomic loungers, your privacy assured by waterfalls running down the big windows and a strict limit on numbers. For more intense beautifying, the Olive Oil and Sea Salt Treatment is perfect for softening parched skin. Come back later for an Indian head massage and you’ll ooze out the door. There’s a cluster of fine dining options around the hacienda-style courtyard; don’t miss chef Dani García’s, which has two Michelin stars.
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.
From the glass-walled gym, you look out on to a sparkling bay, where there’s always a visiting yacht – as well as the hotel’s own charters, an Azimut 55 and a 30 metre Turkish gulet. This slick resort has enlisted the personal training services of Bodyism, the fitness company that keeps Rosie Huntington-Whiteley’s curves in cover-girl shape. Post workout, soothe aching limbs with a sea salt and oil scrub and an Aegean sea shell massage. Bodyism’s philosophy is hardcore but it’s not heartless, so sushi at the resort’s branch of the swanky Japanese restaurant, Zuma, is also on the schedule.
There are changes planned for the spa this summer so keep your eyes peeled as it looks set to become even more stunning in 2016.
Best by boat
Yachts anchor out in the sheltered bay around D-Hotel’s beaches. Tenders zip guests onto the jetty and straight into the heart of the resort. If you fancy a couple of nights on dry land book into the Presidential Suite which offers spectacular views across the bay.
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.



















19 of the best luxury spas in the Mediterranean
The Opium Health Spa, The Elysium Hotel, Cyprus
From Monaco to Bodrum the Mediterranean is full of hotspots that attract some of the largest private superyachts and the most expensive luxury yachts for charter. Thankfully, the Mediterranean is also home to some of the world’s best spas. So after a long week of socialising at some top Mediterranean party destinations, hop off your yacht and enjoy a spot of pampering.
1. The Opium Health Spa, Elysium Hotel, Cyprus
From a bright and contemporary reception area with a Grecian mosaic at one end, stroll down the stone-floored corridor to the vast indoor pool, which is surrounded by comfy loungers and lies adjacent to a Jacuzzi, sauna and steam room, perfect for an afternoon of relaxation after a stint in the fully-equipped gymnasium. Opt for a Pilates class with the charming in-house personal trainer to help improve your posture and core strength.
For the main pampering event, retire behind a curved wooden wall into the Balinese styled relaxation lounge, a quiet spot to enjoy a cup of herbal tea and a book before your treatment. Begin with an ESPA full body Balinese massage and enjoy 80 minutes of muscle unravelling by way of warm essential oils and hot stones — be sure to say what pressure you prefer, though a stronger massage will leave you feeling light and extremely relaxed. To add to your experience, opt for a restorative mud wrap to leave your skin feeling smooth and rejuvenated.
Best by boat: Superyachts up to 110 metres can moor at the Limassol Marina on the southern coast of the island.