Sovata and the Ensana Bradet Health Spa Hotel
Salt and sun promise a better body at Bear Lake
Bear Lake is simply the largest salty and heliothermal (receiving heat from the sun) lake in the world, which means its water is said to be effective in treating many ailments such as chronic degenerative locomotive disorders and rheumatic or inflammatory problems. It is also used for tackling gynaecological complaints, especially infertility. These may not be my particular concerns, but surely a good soaking must get me up well into my late 80s.
And the Ensana Bradet Health Spa Hotel, a four-star, must push me further to that century of years, with a health centre replete with doctors, trainers, swimming and soaking pools, spa, electrotherapy, hydrotherapy, oxygen therapy and mud treatment. Surely that would all put a person in better working order, and there are different massages for that troublesome back.
In any case, Sovata sits amidst Transylvania and so the location alone is enough to give infirm bods a boost – the forested surroundings (“on the other side of the woods”) produce air many degrees cleaner than the poisonous particulates and marsh gas filling our lungs in polluted Budapest. By the by, this area remains strongly Hungarian populated, and to them Lacul Ursu/Bear Lake is Medve-tó.
Our fourth-floor hotel room balcony presents a pleasing vista – rolling hills covered in trees are everywhere and right down below is the 79-hectare nature reserve near the Salt Rocks with Bear Lake in the middle. Swifts enjoying the fun of flying swoop continuously past our balcony.
Ensana Hotels is a division of the major Hungarian hospitality company Danubius Hotels and there are three Ensana hotels in Romania, adjacent to each other and connected by walkways and a tunnel. They are the Ensana Bradet Health Spa Hotel, which is just across the road from the Hotel Ursina, a three-star, and the Ensana Sovata Health Spa Hotel, another four-star and joined to the Ensana Bradet by a lift and tunnel. So all three can share facilities and are within a few minutes’ walk of the lake.
Lacul Ursu formed in 1875 with the collapse of a salt mine amid a sequence of meteorological, hydrological and geological events. It filled with water from rainfall and streams, and the touristic potential was first recognised by landowner Lajos Sófalvi Illyés in 1900. After the construction of the first public baths, Sovata developed quickly and attracted the attention of the small aristocrtacs, who began to build summer residences.
Many of these beautiful homes still exist – Villa Sara, Villa Maria, Villa olna, Villa St Joseph, Villa Szőke and Villa Muskáti are prime examples. In the interwar period, Sovata became one of the most fashionable spas in Romania, visited several times by the country’s Royal Family before the family effectively dissolved with the abdication of King Michael in 1947.
The lake is shaped as a bear’s skin, hence the name. With its surface of 40, 235 square metres and an average depth of 10 metres, the surface temperature is usually around 10-20 degrees Celsius and it can reach even 45 until at about 2.5 metres (only until the rays of the sun reach). After that it gradually cools down.
This is due to the different salt concentration of the layers, varying between 100-300 grams per litre, which lets you float or stand up without sinking. Basically, Lake Ursu is like a miniature sea among mountains, surrounded by unspoiled forests.
And there are four other smaller salt lakes in the nature reserve (Alunis, Rosu, Verde and Mierlei) and two freshwater ones, the Paraschiva and Tineretului. Thus the water has been used over the past century, and still today, to treat human ailments. In 2015 Sovata Municipality finished the “Salt-Road” project of 2.8 kilometres of trails and promenades with information boards around the lakes.
In summer, Ensana Bradet Health Spa Hotel room rates include entrance to Bear and Alunis Lakes, twice a day for each person, and these two function as beaches. As mentioned, the hotel has extensive facilities and they include indoor pool areas (wellness pool, swimming pool, hydro pool, children’s pool and saltwater therapy pools, the latter with water from Bear Lake) and warm and cold Kneipp basins.
The Spa Centre has doctors on weekdays to perform diagnostic examinations and pre-treatment health screening, and there are qualified trainers to aid fitness with cardiovascular and strength-training equipment. The Treatment Cabins include 11 massage rooms, a room with salt baths/saltwater irrigation, a room for carbon dioxide baths, hydrotherapy department with Galvanic baths, underwater massage baths and aroma baths for couples, two rooms for hydromassage, 11 cabins for mud packs, six hydrotherapy cabins, an inhalation room and a room for oxygen therapy.
Add Finnish and infrared saunas, steam bath, aroma cabin, dipping pool, ice fountain and relaxation room. A Beauty Salon offers cosmetic treatments and a range of services called BABOR Wellness & Beauty. Also available are a hairdresser, cosmetics, manicure and pedicure for ladies and gentlemen. Massages stimulate muscle regeneration, blood circulation, skin tone and relaxation.
The hotel rooms are a choice of Deluxe, Deluxe Plus and Deluxe Suite, all individually air-conditioned, with en-suite bathrooms, extra blankets and pillows, bathrobes and slippers, hairdryers, safes, mini-fridges with minibars, flat-screen cable television, telephone, free internet and balconies.
Parking is limited but, importantly, the hotels are pet-friendly. Extra beds and cots are available. The Lobby has a small Business Centre with a work station, shoe polisher, gift shop and bell captain. The Orhidea Café & Bar offers snacks, salads, soft and alcoholic drinks and an ice machine.
A buffet breakfast is included, and for half-board there is an evening meal, again a buffet, with Romanian, international and vegetarian dishes. Ensana also has a Conference Service Department with fully equipped rooms, a Banqueting Department and a Life loyalty program offering benefits and discounts of up to 20 percent on future stays, based on nights already spent.
All in all, wake in Sováta to birdsong and the first sunrays with the promise of taking a healthy and salty bath in the nearby lakes. And perhaps that congratulatory telegram from British royalty upon reaching the magic century.
