[SATURNIA, TUSCANY] — Just a few miles from Pitigliano is a cool sulfur hot springs called Saturnia.  Just a nice little natural stop to have lunch among all the undiscovered hill towns of Maremma.  It’s not much more than a slit in the earth on the side of the road, but it is still cool. If you want a fancier spa-like experience, check out the Terme di Saturnia resort a few blocks up the road.

The springs date back to the Pelasgi, who were before the Greeks, before the Etruscans and waaay before the Romans finally hung out here in 200BC or so. So like me, the springs are very old but dependable, bubbly and naturally effervescent. 😜

This is Tuscany? I think what really got me heated up over these hot springs — besides the bumpy calcified natural hot tubs, the crazy looking water and that one girl in the black bikini in that last post — was that people have been doing this exact same thing, right here, for over three thousand years. Sure, their swimming costumes may have changed, some pagans were probably sacrificed along the way and the fiats are no longer decreed by the Orsinis, but parked along the road, but still… that’s a long damn time.

Families pack a lunch and spend all day at Saturnia. It’s cowded, but big enough so everyone has their own sulfury hot tub. All these springs just spouting out of a field in the middle of nowhere in western Tuscany. This was in October a couple years ago, but the steaming, bubbly water brought out the warmth in everyone.

At the top of the waterfalls, you can follow the stream along to its source. Even take a dip.

It really is wild how these springs little spring out of just rolling farmland, just off to the side of the road.

Last visited October 2012