I have stayed at the Helvetia a few times over past 1 year, the last being in April. Its a wonderful hotel just across the rail station. It is clearly the best choice in Porretta.

While I have been a business traveller and had not experienced the spa, a brief visit there inspired me to give it a try this time. It was wonderful, though a tad expensive.

The hotel has a nice restaurant and food is exquisite. They also have abar on the first floor. On an earlier visit, we had to use the business centre and it was adequate with copying and fascimile facilities.

The area around Porretta is wonderful and Helvetia makes it special

Overall this was an excellent, above my expectations experience. We got a package of 3 days and 2 nights that included a 50 minute body massage, a 30 minute water treatment that they explained as "water cuddling" (highly recommended). We added on 25 minute massages to our package and ate all of our meals at the hotel. The only parts I would say were flawed in our experience was the dining and the staff not speaking enough English.

Being someone who has eaten very well in Italy, I found their "spa cuisine" to be rather lackluster. It was supposed to follow more of a glycemic index diet (low in sugar) which I would have been fine with, but it did not in any way resemble a healthy, glycemic friendly diet, especially considering that lunch and dinner involved 3 very filling courses and dessert. For flavor, I wished we had ventured out into the town and eaten at some local trattorias.

The plus side was that we could eat breakfast and lunch in our spa robes instead of having to dress to go out in the rain to find food. So that really added to our experience of relaxation.

The reception staff and some of the restaurant staff spoke English sufficiently, but the rest of the staff did not. Since I speak Italian it was fine, but I had to translate a lot for my friend even cutting my own massage short to do so.

I reccommend going there during the week and avoiding the crowded weekend.

The hotel was beautiful, the spa facilities were amazing and clean. I particularly liked that the steam room was not overpoweringly hot/steamy. The lights inside were beautiful, calming and unique. They had another lower heat sauna for those of us who can't tolerate the heat of a standard sauna, which I SO appreciated.

There was tea and water available all the time near the pool and lovely music playing throughout the spa. One of my other favorite things were these mini-water-bed lounges they had by the pool. A great alternative to laying on a harder chair (which they also have).

You can float around the pool with the floaty "fun noodles" they provide, get a waterfall massage, sit near jets. There was even a gym at the spa that looked wonderful, but I never stepped foot inside of it. I just spent the entire time in my swim suit. :-)