A Romantic Visit to a Wild Thermal Spring in Tuscany

by Kathy

I was on my tour to Tuscany during the intense cold month of March last year and it seemed the dying winter was getting wild putting on its best effort to freeze bones for the last time, and my hubby was swirling along the roads off the roadway south of Siena.

Photo Credit: AroundTuscany - Flickr

It was really a great surprise for me as I was wondering where this man is taking me, rounding up through the beautifully crafted Chianti countryside studded with majestic cypress trees to wilder and more serene landscape of thickly wooded hills, where the wild boars were frolicking under the sky – a huge country unfolded over a small groomed land.

The day was at its closing point and the bitter cold becoming bitterer and below us; a stream was tracking its way through a verdant copse. Looking at this we stopped and tussled down the sloping dirt track to it, the relics of a Roman wall on our left, and an over-bridge arcing above to the right. The scene was fantastic and the water in the spring seems bubbling as the vapors can be seen rising. It was an opal pool formed by the running river. This bucolic setting, which was a natural thermal bath fed hot springs dripping down a set pattern of rocks, makes it a great getaway with the setting day.

Seeing this natural thermal spring, we took off our clothes and got into our swim suits, as we were on return journey from a beach. We quickly ran through the misty air into the warm water and got such a great relaxation. We just forgot everything and lay down in that bed of warm stream to get all relief from the aching body due to long traveling. The only thing I didn’t like was its smell as it strongly represented the smell of rafflesia!

A local who was having a bath in the pool explained that the rotten smell of the pool is due to the presence of sulphur which gives such an odour but on the contrary it has greater benefits on skin as it works out to supple skin. We lay down there for several hours. The shimmering sun was gone giving way to twinkling stars with a dash of moonlight expanding over the Tuscan sky giving an amorous romantic nightlife to enjoy… ;) It was really a la Dolce vita…!?

We stepped out after two hours in the chilly air wearing an armor of warm steam and were truly rejuvenated by the soothing effects of the water. We drove back to our holiday house in San Gimignano (Ferienhaus San Gimignano called in German) with a sweet memory of romantic night at a natural thermal spring. My introduction to this wild spring had nourished my senses and my love for the thermal baths has increased immensely. It would be a memoir for a lifetime.