Luxury Spas of the World: AIRE Ancient Baths | Chicago

Inspired by the original Ancient Baths in Sevilla, Spain, where peace, tranquility, and relaxation are held in high regard, AIRE Ancient Baths brings a slice of this incredible experience to the hustle and bustle of Chicago, creating a unique, restful space in the heart of one of America’s largest cities. Be completely transported to an intimate, candlelit space where time does not exist, and soak your cares away as you breeze from bath to bath, each with a different temperature, restorative property, and atmosphere.

View my video tour of AIRE Ancient Baths, here.

Aire Ancient Baths | Chicago

Location: Chicago, IL
Address: 800 West Superior St.
Chicago, IL 60642
Services: Couples, individual & custom tailored massages,
soaks, scrubs, and more.
Price Range: $200 – $800
Phone Number: +1 (312) 945-7414

About

Throughout history, and across cultures, bathing has been an essential part of wellness, cultural expression, socializing, and relaxation. AIRE Ancient Baths works to connect many aspects from different bathing cultures around the world, like Greeks, Romans, Ottomans, and beyond in a modern, sophisticated manner by integrating some of their most beguiling rituals, like cold plunge baths, heated or body-temperature baths, salt water baths perfect for floating in, and waterfall bathing. By combining these various bathing experiences, nearly a dozen different bathing areas, with two large steam rooms, and the option to include additional scrubs, wine soaks, massages, or other body treatments, means you will leave AIRE feeling refreshed, relaxed, and rejuvenated, just as we did.

What to Bring & When to Arrive

Every hour, a small number of people are allowed to enter the baths, ensuring that the space stays unpopulated to allow each guest to have a tranquil and undisturbed experience. Arrive 10-15 minutes early, with a bathing suit, to allow yourself time to check in, change, acclimate to the low lighting, and prepare for your bathing experience. Each locker room is stocked with ample lockers, large tiled showers, and benches perfect for meditating or stretching. Each locker has water shoes which must be worn at all times during the bathing experience, a robe which can be taken down to the baths with you, a towel, hangers for your belongings, and a shelf for your various possessions. Leave all electronics, cell phones, and other belongings in your locker, and head down to the baths as directed.

What You’ll Need

The only thing you’ll need for your bathing experience is a swimsuit, and in the event that you forget one, AIRE has swimsuits that can be borrowed too. When heading down to the bath area, bring only your robe, and the water shoes and swimsuit you’ll be wearing. You won’t need anything else. There are several areas of rest around the bathing space with herb and fruit infused waters, hot Moroccan teas, and other beverages so that you won’t become dehydrated. Once you enter the bathing area, Chicago’s is the largest out all of the AIRE Ancient Baths around the world, an attendant will show you around, explain each bath, and answer any lingering questions you may have.

The Baths

Each bath is a different temperature, and there are no rules about which to enter, or how long to stay in each, simply listen to your body and do what’s comfortable for you. Baths range from cold to about as warm as a hot tub, indoors and out, with the Frigidarium and ice plunge being the coldest, and the Caldarium being the hottest. There are two wet steam saunas, one scented with eucalyptus and the other scented with lavender, which are the perfect places to clear out your pores. Sprinkled around the bathing area are several different showers so you can rinse off between baths, or after spending time in one of the saunas. The salt exfoliation area has a large supply of mineral salts you can use to exfoliate away dead skin, revealing soft, glowing skin underneath.

Additional Services

AIRE Ancient Baths offers additional services too, like massages, wine soaks, scrubs, oil treatments, and other body rituals to enhance your experience. I recommend adding on a 60 minute massage to truly work out any tensions in your body and ensuring that you can enjoy the baths to the fullest. To further enhance your stay, purchase extra bath time, add on an extra service, enjoy some hand pressed juices by Harvest Juicery to replenish essential vitamins and minerals, and ask about the different ways you can take a bit of AIRE home with you. You don’t have to stop pampering yourself when you leave, take home a bath robe, purchasable at the front desk, or extra fresh pressed juice, to continue relishing in your relaxation ritual long after you return home.

Our Experience at AIRE Ancient Baths Chicago

Our experience at AIRE Ancient Baths was simply phenomenal. We love soaking in relaxing baths, whether it’s mineral baths in the Black Forest of Germany, hot spring fed onsen in Japan, or the Blue Lagoon in Iceland, we are fans of bathing in all of its forms, and we visit spas at least twice a month. The bathing experience at AIRE was unbelievable, and one of our favorite experiences to date, because of how indulgent it was. The team at AIRE has created something so beautiful, so restorative, and so relaxing here in Chicago, that I already can’t wait to go back. We loved that it felt as though we were in a subterranean space, and we loved how peaceful the candlelight illumination made the space feel.

Who It’s For

If you’re going through a difficult or stressful season of your life, if you have been feeling tired often, or if you want to celebrate an achievement, promotion, graduation, or include this as part of a date, or your honeymoon experience, AIRE fits the bill for so many moments in life, because the experience can be completely customized to suit your needs, whether they’re reparative and restorative, or celebratory in nature, or if you simply want to make this part of your self-care ritual. I cannot recommend visiting AIRE Ancient Baths highly enough, it’s truly an incredible experience.

Have you ever visited AIRE Ancient Baths in Chicago, or one of their other locations like New York City, Barcelona, Sevilla, Almería, or beyond? AIRE Ancient Baths will also be coming to Paris, London, and Copenhagen soon!

Thank you AIRE Ancient Baths for collaborating with us on this project, we truly loved our visit.

Safe Travels!

xAnnie Fairfax
Follow Me for More: @AnnieFairfax

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