Things you buy through our links may earn Vox Media a commission. Soon after we moved to Italy to open our new hotel we decided to try out massage therapists for the property. I distinctly remember the first tryout with a rather handsome man who also happened to be our second chef. I was lying on the table β front up β and to my surprise he removed my towel, poured oil on my nipples, and then for a good five minutes massaged my breasts. After living here almost a decade, I have become entirely at home with this aspect of massage in Italy.
Although I do always suggest that masseuses inform our guests of this part of the therapy in order to avoid any embarrassment on either side. Case in point: the paper panties that you must wear during treatments. In most massages I have had the world over, you get to choose if you wear the disposable underwear left on the table, but in this country, not wearing them is a decided affront.
I can always tell who are the German tourists and who are the Italian ones when I go to one of the spas in the northern part of the country. The Germans have absolutely no issues about taking it all off nota bene: Leather sandals and hairy balls do not a good sight make whereas the Italians will always wear a bathing suit even in a single-sex sauna or steam room. A bikini-line cleanup is fine, but if you ask to take it all off or even for a narrow landing strip, an uncomfortable silence descends and you will end up only with a conservative approximation of the request.
I sometimes think about what they would say about the complete Brazilian of the J. Sisters kind, or the Completely Bare Swarovski crystal designs sometimes displayed on the otherwise-hairless downtowns of Upper East Side ladies.
There are some treatments in my new home country that are of a completely different emphasis than I am used to. For example, I love an intensive facial, one that involves extraction, including an old-fashioned needle, microdermabrasion, and a pain level close to a first wax experience. So I tend to get massages and body wraps here, but wait until I am out of the country for my facials.
