It’s a chilly, late winter day on Galiano Island, but I’m feeling like a ripe summer fruit.
I’m lying face down on a massage table in a little garden cottage on the grounds of the Galiano Oceanfront Inn, listening to the soothing burble of the fountain outside. And I’m beginning to smell like blackberries.
OK, so this isn’t a photo of me, but it is a picture of the blackberry vinotherapy massage that I’m enjoying at the Madrona del Mar Spa.
Part of the spa’s menu of “edible spa” treatments, which use natural edible ingredients like fruits or chocolate, blackberry vinotherapy is an aromatherapy massage in which massage oil is infused with a blackberry port made on nearby Salt Spring Island.
Whether or not the blackberries are “helpful in anti-aging,” as the spa says, my skin certainly felt smoother. It was a great massage, too. Who knew I carried so much tension in my feet?!?
And to ensure that you’re totally mellow by the end of the vinotherapy treatment, you even finish up with a couple of sips of the sweet blackberry wine!
One of British Columbia’s Southern Gulf Islands, Galiano makes a lovely escape from the city — it’s less than an hour’s ferry trip from Vancouver — and at this time of year, it’s definitely mellow and quiet.
It was nippy on this white shell beach at Montague Harbour Provincial Park, but isn’t it a beautiful spot?
I would have loved to stay at the Galiano Inn long enough to try one of the other “edible” treatments, like a blueberry smoothie wrap or a chocolate pedicure. Wouldn’t you like to soak your feet in chocolate milk (and not because one of the kids knocked over their sippy cup)?
Rather than wrapping my feet in chocolate, though, I wrapped up my stay with a warm, oozing chocolate lava cake in the inn’s window-lined waterfront dining room.
After all, a woman can endure only so much almost-edible pampering before she needs to eat!
Would you like to share a photo or post about your edible experiences? Join the WanderFood Wednesday blog carnival. Here’s how:
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If you go:
The Madrona del Mar Spa is at the Galiano Oceanfront Inn & Spa, 134 Madrona Drive, on Galiano Island, 1-877-530-3939 or 250-539-3388. From Vancouver’s Tsawwassen ferry terminal, it’s less than an hour’s ride; get the current sailing schedules from BC Ferries. The inn is a five-minute walk from the ferry dock.
Thank you to the Galiano Inn for hosting my stay. My opinions (and my appetites) are my own.
Tasty Travels!
Carolyn
Photo credits:
Blackberry photo by byJoeLodge (flickr)
Blackberry Vinotherapy photo courtesy of the Galiano Oceanfront Inn & Spa
Other photos © Carolyn B. Heller