Villa Stéphanie: the detox destination for full health restoration

Health clinics tend to fall into two categories: spoiling arenas to waft around in with a glass of champagne, or ascetic, crust-chewing places of internment.

But what about something down the middle? Something luxurious, where you’ll feel uplifted — and heck, well fed — but with a highly sophisticated, almost futuristically medical approach? Welcome to Villa Stéphanie.

Set on the River Oos in Germany’s Baden-Baden, a storied spa town since Roman times, Villa Stéphanie has an illustrious past. It was built as a town house in the Belle Époque, and was once the property of Stéphanie de Beauharnais, the beautiful adopted daughter of Napoleon. As you might expect of a property in the same family as The Lanesborough and Hotel du Cap-Eden Roc, the interiors are elegant, all blond wood and modern art. With only 12 rooms and three suites, it really does feel like home. Only a rather better home, which will analyse everything from your DNA and your cellular function, to how your emotions may be affecting your energy flow.

‘We use the best of contemporary medicine — we are very German and like to be sure we miss nothing,’ says medical lead Dr König. People come for a range of reasons, from improving athletic performance, to weight loss or detox, or simply to ward off future ill health.

On arrival guests are invited for body analysis. While I had thought I was a robust size 8, I soon learned I have insufficient fat protecting my organs and am putting my body at risk. Sadly the answer is less the regional speciality Black Forest cake, and instead adding a bit more vinaigrette.

For the gamut of blood tests, I walked through a wood-panelled corridor to Haus Julius, the medical area that joins on to Villa Stéphanie. It’s a bright white space, peopled with attractive nurses in white shirts. My results, as well as a series of questionnaires, were fed into my first medical appointment — and with astonishing rapidity the doctor started producing solutions to issues I had never imagined I could fix, from the pain in my knees to my teeth grinding and headaches.

The experience of each guest is entirely bespoke. In between meeting the doctors I did Pilates and yoga, and swam in a glorious, Roman-style pool opening out onto the gardens. Along the Oos is a promenade, previously a carriage track, lined with leafy parkland. The town is a confection of small shops, animated by fur-clad ladies with small dogs. Across the river is the Museum Frieder Burda, which contains works by Picasso, Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke.

In the evening, after a dinner of scallops or gilthead bream, I sank gladly into my vast bed and reached for the last little detoxing pièce de résistance: a switch that turns off the wi-fi which, combined with the specialised paint on the walls and triple insulated electrical cabling, means any electrical contamination is blocked.

I left with a good bill of health, a bag of nutritional supplements and a range of cognitive behavioural tricks (such as putting on an imaginary pink latex suit to ward off external stress). I felt ready for anything.

Rebecca was a guest of Villa Stéphanie. Healing Holidays offers a seven-night detox programme from £4,569 per person sharing, including BA flights and full board (healingholidays.co.uk)