Catherine Price by 101 Places Not to See Before You Die Page B
Authors: 101 Places Not to See Before You Die
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Turkish Baths
T he Russian & Turkish Baths have been open in New York’s East Village since 1892, and they’re the real deal: a sauna, an ice-cold pool, Russian and Turkish steam rooms, and a cafeteria serving borscht and Polish sausage. After locking up your belongings and trading your clothing for a threadbare towel and sandals, you’ll be set free to pick your preferred location to schvitz it out with a random assortment of old Russians, young hipsters, and everyone in between. If you’ve ever wondered what could be less pleasant than being smushed together with strangers in a crowded subway car in July, consider this: the baths are hotter, wetter, and on single-sex days, no one’s wearing clothes.
The most interesting room in the baths is the Russian sauna, one of the only ones in the United States. For people with heart problems, it’s also the most dangerous. Literally an oven, it’s filled with twenty thousand pounds of rock that are heated overnight and left to cool during the day. They retain enough heat to keep the room nearly unbearable for hours after the oven is turned off. That explains the white plastic buckets and the spigots of ice-cold water—the custom is to sit in the room until the heat becomes excruciating, fill up an entire bucket of ice water, and then dump it over your head. Fans of the baths call the resulting experience a moment of “sheer delight,” but a more accurate description would also include shock and a brief inability to breathe. If you are at risk for any sort of cardiac attack, this might not be your best choice.
If you want to really push your luck, sign up for a Platza Oak Leaf treatment, a traditional Russian treatment in which a spa attendant will lay you down, take a bundle of oak leaves soaked in olive oil soap, and beat you. (The leaves, which are naturally astringent, exfoliate the skin and open the pores.) More often than not, this treatment will occur in the Russian sauna itself, which means that not only will it be observed by everyone in the room, but that, oppressed by the heat, you might suffocate. Then, just before you pass out, your body will be subjected to its final shock: the attendant will have you sit up, close your eyes, and, without warning, slowly pour two buckets of ice water over your head.
Chapter 55 The Blarney Stone
N o one is really sure where the Blarney Stone came from. Some say it could have been part of Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall, brought to Ireland during the Crusades. Others claim it’s a piece of the Stone of Scone given to Cormac MacCarthy in 1314 to thank him for his help in the Battle of Bannockburn. Some even think it’s the rock that Moses struck with his staff to provide water to the Israelites. “Whatever the truth of its origin, we believe a witch saved from drowning revealed its power to the MacCarthys,” the Blarney Castle Web site announces, simultaneously dodging the question and discrediting itself as a reliable source of information.
Regardless of which, if any, of these rumors are true, there’s still no explanation for why a stone of such importance would have been inconspicuously incorporated into the exterior wall of a fifteenth-century castle. But that’s not the point. Set into the battlements of Blarney Castle, about five miles from the Irish town of Cork, the block of bluestone is said to bestow anyone who kisses it with great eloquence and talent in empty flattery. So for over two hundred years, pilgrims from around the world have been planting wet ones on the stone’s surface in hopes that they too will be blessed with the so-called “gift of gab.”
Unfortunately for would-be orators, the stone does not lend itself naturally to public displays of affection. Reaching it requires climbing to the top of the castle, leaning backward over a parapet, and dangling much of your body in the air, angling for a kiss as you gaze at the ground looming several stories below. In the good old days before liability
T he Russian & Turkish Baths have been open in New York’s East Village since 1892, and they’re the real deal: a sauna, an ice-cold pool, Russian and Turkish steam rooms, and a cafeteria serving borscht and Polish sausage. After locking up your belongings and trading your clothing for a threadbare towel and sandals, you’ll be set free to pick your preferred location to schvitz it out with a random assortment of old Russians, young hipsters, and everyone in between. If you’ve ever wondered what could be less pleasant than being smushed together with strangers in a crowded subway car in July, consider this: the baths are hotter, wetter, and on single-sex days, no one’s wearing clothes.
The most interesting room in the baths is the Russian sauna, one of the only ones in the United States. For people with heart problems, it’s also the most dangerous. Literally an oven, it’s filled with twenty thousand pounds of rock that are heated overnight and left to cool during the day. They retain enough heat to keep the room nearly unbearable for hours after the oven is turned off. That explains the white plastic buckets and the spigots of ice-cold water—the custom is to sit in the room until the heat becomes excruciating, fill up an entire bucket of ice water, and then dump it over your head. Fans of the baths call the resulting experience a moment of “sheer delight,” but a more accurate description would also include shock and a brief inability to breathe. If you are at risk for any sort of cardiac attack, this might not be your best choice.
If you want to really push your luck, sign up for a Platza Oak Leaf treatment, a traditional Russian treatment in which a spa attendant will lay you down, take a bundle of oak leaves soaked in olive oil soap, and beat you. (The leaves, which are naturally astringent, exfoliate the skin and open the pores.) More often than not, this treatment will occur in the Russian sauna itself, which means that not only will it be observed by everyone in the room, but that, oppressed by the heat, you might suffocate. Then, just before you pass out, your body will be subjected to its final shock: the attendant will have you sit up, close your eyes, and, without warning, slowly pour two buckets of ice water over your head.
Chapter 55 The Blarney Stone
N o one is really sure where the Blarney Stone came from. Some say it could have been part of Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall, brought to Ireland during the Crusades. Others claim it’s a piece of the Stone of Scone given to Cormac MacCarthy in 1314 to thank him for his help in the Battle of Bannockburn. Some even think it’s the rock that Moses struck with his staff to provide water to the Israelites. “Whatever the truth of its origin, we believe a witch saved from drowning revealed its power to the MacCarthys,” the Blarney Castle Web site announces, simultaneously dodging the question and discrediting itself as a reliable source of information.
Regardless of which, if any, of these rumors are true, there’s still no explanation for why a stone of such importance would have been inconspicuously incorporated into the exterior wall of a fifteenth-century castle. But that’s not the point. Set into the battlements of Blarney Castle, about five miles from the Irish town of Cork, the block of bluestone is said to bestow anyone who kisses it with great eloquence and talent in empty flattery. So for over two hundred years, pilgrims from around the world have been planting wet ones on the stone’s surface in hopes that they too will be blessed with the so-called “gift of gab.”
Unfortunately for would-be orators, the stone does not lend itself naturally to public displays of affection. Reaching it requires climbing to the top of the castle, leaning backward over a parapet, and dangling much of your body in the air, angling for a kiss as you gaze at the ground looming several stories below. In the good old days before liability
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