PRICE:
Frommer's Exceptional

If you had to create the quintessential Austin spa, it would be laid-back, be located on a serene body of water, offer lots of outdoor activities, and feature super-healthy food that lives up to high culinary standards. You'll sign off on every item of that wish list here. The spa takes advantage of its proximity to the Highland Lakes and the Hill Country by offering such activities as combination canoe/hiking trips and excursions to view the wildflowers. The aromatic ingredients for soothing spa treatments like a honey-mango scrub are grown in the resort's garden, also the source for the herbs used at mealtimes. Guest rooms, many in cottages with private gardens, fireplaces, and hot tubs, are casually elegant, with all-natural fabrics and locally crafted furniture. It would be hard to imagine an interest or activity you couldn't indulge here, from the kick-butt kind like step aerobics and spinning to the gentler yoga, tai chi, and Pilates or gardening and cooking classes. The coup de grâce is the 25,000-sq.-ft. LakeHouse spa, which opened in April 2004. Will these world-class facilities, replete with hair and nail salon, separate locker and lounge areas for men and women, and the latest in trendy treatments and lectures, turn Lake Austin glitzy? And, after all that destressing, will you care?

Copyright: Excerpted from Frommer's San Antonio & Austin, 8th Edition, (c) 2008, Wiley Publishing, Inc.

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