A 30,000sq m (322,917sq ft) wellness, entertainment and recreation centre has opened in Bucharest that aims to put the Romanian town on the geothermal map in the company of other European capital cities such as Rome, Budapest and Vienna.
The Therme Bucharest can accommodate 4,000 guests at once, and features eight swimming pools, seven saunas and fifteen waterslides – as well as 800,000 plants, making it one of the largest botanical gardens in Romania.
The development also includes a 560sq m (6,028sq ft) wave pool, a 25m (82ft) pool and three restaurants.
The project is owned by Vienna-based A-Heat Group AG and developed with the German Wund Group, which also owns similar thermal parks at Therme Erding, Therme Bad Worishofen, Badeparadies Schwarzwald and Badewelt Sinsheim – all in Germany.
“We are honoured and proud to open this complex in Bucharest, for which we employed the experience and imagination of a team of specialists from three countries: Romania, Austria and Germany,” said Hubert Spegel, CEO A-Heat Group AG.
The thermal water is extracted from a depth of 3,100m (10,171ft). The company said it is the deepest thermal drilling well since 1989, and the mineral-rich water includes magnesium, iron, calcium and sodium.
The facade of the building is self-supporting and features a 900sq m (9,688sq ft) retractable roof, built to withstand earthquakes and protected by anti-tornado foils. Therme Bucharest also generates its own energy from the heat of the thermal waters, producing enough energy to power itself for 320 days of the year, the company said.
The inside air temperature of the complex is heated to 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), and the thermal waters – extracted at 80 degrees Celsius (176 Fahrenheit), are treated and cooled to a constant temperature of 33 degrees Celsius (91.4 Fahrenheit).
The complex features six themed saunas and a steam sauna where rituals such as body wraps, peelings and aromatherapy are offered. Each sauna has its own design, aroma and sound system, and the saunas can host up to 300 visitors at any one time. There are also three massage rooms, where traditional massages, along with specialist treatments such as lymphatic drainage, lomi lomi and volcanic stones are performed.
Aufguss sauna rituals – performed for ten minutes at temperatures between 40 and 90 degrees Celsius (104 and 194 Fahrenheit) – involve aromatic oil infusion and a sauna master using a towel to move hot air around.
Planting at Therme Bucharest was brought in from four continents, and includes more than 1,200 trees, 3,000 shrubs, 600,000 flowers, 40,000 roses, 60,000 euonymus and 500 palm trees. Three glass facades in the main building provide light for the indoor plants, which include a 120-year-old Ficus Religiosa – a type of fig tree sacred in Hinduism and Buddhism – which was imported from China.
The 500 palm trees were brought in from Malaysia, Madagascar, Singapore, Thailand and Florida, and went through a complex acclimatisation process in the Netherlands that lasted 700 days, the company said.
