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This elegant art deco house is a calm and collected place to experience the ancient therapy of Ayurveda.

Set on the edge of a quiet town surrounded by vineyards, the clinic is all clean lines and white spaces. Delicious smells of ayurvedic herbs and spices infuse the corridors, and there’s a peaceful, civilised atmosphere. Bedrooms are spacious and well-designed, painted in colours tailored to the ‘doshas’ – green to earth vata types, red to fire you up if you’re kapha, and blue to cool you if you’re pitta.

Meals are eaten in a simple, white-clothed dining room, where a single white candle burns on each table at dinner. The main meal is served at lunchtime, when your digestive fire is at its strongest, with desert eaten first, it being the hardest to digest.

Come here for short wellbeing, slimming, beauty and anti-ageing packages.  For weight loss programmes the minimum recommendation is 2 weeks or for a proper full-on detox through panchakarma it's two weeks or more. There are plenty of lovely activities to distract you between ayurveda treatments - lounge in the sauna (infused with lemon-grass, spruce or sandalwood for different constitutions); read on piles of soft wool blankets by the swimming pool; take one of the spa’s classes in a gorgeous wooden-floored room with huge windows.

Luxurious touches will make you feel well cared for. Your morning dose of ghee is served in a pristine sherry glass. Hot water bottles, rose petal eye pads and knee rolls are used during the treatments. Even during svedana, lying in a wooden steam box and sweating profusely, your hair is cooled with coconut oil and your heart protected by a pure white towel.

You’ll want to get out, too, of course - the little town of Bad Wildstein is a mellow place to explore, and you can go biking along the pretty River Mosel.

Highs

• Therapists are expert, kind and trustworthy.
• Chef Eckhard Fischer is a genius, cooking up exceptional food that doesn’t make you feel you’re being deprived.
• At just over an hour’s flight from the UK, it’s a whole lot closer than India.

Lows

• Some of the evening lectures are in German - private sessions can be arranged.
• It’s very European in style – so guests dress up a little just to eat their bowl of evening soup (though we still felt comfy in our yoga pants and T shirt).
• The hushed, rather clinical atmosphere won’t suit everyone.

Healthy Traveller Tip

Gentle yoga and exercise classes will help you feel better during your detox – try the Medi Swing, an excuse to revert to childhood on a mini-trampoline.

Who goes

A wide range of guests from stressed-out businessmen and women to ladies who usually lunch. You’ll feel comfortable alone or with a friend.

Other wellness clinic ideas

We recommend a number of other highly regarded wellness clinics, such as:

• SHA in southern Spain
• Parkhotel Igls in Austria
• Adler-Thermae in Tuscany, Italy
• Longevity Wellness Resort in the Algarve, Portugal