o retain your halcyon reading experience, I'll reduce the typical spa-as-urban-oasis parable to one obligatory sentence: located in the InterContinental on Front Street, the Spa is a way-downtown sanctuary amidst economic, tourist, and athletic-induced freneticism.

On the hotel's third floor, the Spa - even its to-the-point moniker has an aura of calm simplification - is 8000 square feet of Frank Costanza-placating serenity. It features a full weight room, a 48 foot saline pool, a salt-water hot tub, and an organic juice/smoothie menu. Naturally, the major draw is the treatment menu.

The selection card is happily wide-ranging. Going to the face, options include the extensive, anti-aging Absolute Renewal ($180) and the Kino-winking (see The Pearl) Pearl Luxury ($140), which aims for oxygenating (yeah, I got that word directly from the menu) via pearl powder (exoticism is cool in a spa setting).

Working the body, treatments innovatively incorporate mud and scrubs (i.e. Intense Detoxifying Mud ($150) and Aromatic Body Scrub ($135)). Massages run a hand-on-skin gamut, from Shiatsu ($130) to Aromatic ($135).

A full range of esthetic options; half-sized, reduced- rate treatments; and full-service packages are also available; so too are memberships and Caligula-evoking (well, not exactly) group treatments.

Inside the InterContinental Toronto Centre
225 Front Street West
Toronto, ON
416-646-5838