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Taking the plunge becomes a grand affair at Banya 5, an intimate 3,600-square-foot coed Russian-inspired bathhouse. Muted colors and clean lines suggest this is all about wellness and not a pickup joint. After you don a suit and flip-flops, a typical circuit might go something like this: Start in a dry brick and cedar sauna that reaches 215 degrees, and when you're good and ready, take a light whipping with oak boughs (it creates astringent tannins that bring blood to the surface, owner John Goodfellow promises). Then plunge in the cold pool, a bracing 55 degrees Fahrenheit to match Puget Sound, and even out in a tepid, salt-water pool that has the same salinity as the Sound. When you're ready to warm up again, you can head to the hot tub, or into the Turkish steam room that gets up to about 120 degrees.

"It feels good, especially in the cold and the damp and the rain," says Goodfellow.

Before you leave, sip a cup of ginger-mint tea that comes out of a samovar. Makes the old country seem not so far away.

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By Vanessa McGrady
Special to NWsource