Hot springs day! Terme means hot springs, or something close to it, so we decided we needed to go and visit one today. Tuscany is famous for them (so we have been told) and it didn’t take too much looking before we found one. Many have been grabbed by big, fancy (ie expensive) hotels, but a book said to try and find one of the smaller local ones, and it would be a lot cheaper, and not timed.
We found a couple on the road to Siena, so we headed off in that direction. We decided we’d stop at the first one we found, and that looked to be a town called Rapolano. About 40 minutes later, we were on the Rapolano turn off. We followed signs, and then the signs disappeared, so we had a little tour of the town itself, before we found another sign, which led us a little out of town, but (eventually) straight to the terme.
We found a car park and then headed to what we thought was the entrance – but we’re still not sure what it was. It was just a building I guess – but on the way, we crossed a little stream that was obviously coming from the pools. It was that bright aqua colour, the colour of the sulphur filled water – and there were deposits all over the side of the ‘creek’. I got pretty excited about that, smell aside, I have heard that sulphur baths are fabulous.
We found the main entrance, and headed over to the cashier – who didn’t speak English. The most conversation we could understand between us all was ‘hot’ and ‘€12.00’. They had fabulous glossy brochures explaining all the different massage treatments, but none were in English, so we just went for the baths bit.
Change rooms over and done with, we walked into what could almost be described as a local swimming pool - although the smell was of rotten eggs rather than chlorine. There were deck chairs everywhere, umbrellas over them all, and four different shaped pools, most with little waterfall thingys. Each pool was a slightly different temperature, with big tubes that spewed out water at a great rate, so you could stand under them to get a massage from the water. The first pool we went to, was quite hot indeed, and it was a sunny day and the pools were open air, so we both ended up a little sunburnt by the end of the day. I can’t tell you the temperature of the pool we were in, but I can tell you that they ranged from 23 degrees (celcius) to 40 degrees. The first one we went to was long and rectangular, and had a ledge thing across about 1/8 of the pool. We later discovered that this sectioned off an even hotter area.
Getting into the pool was a little weird though – hot pool, hot day, direct sunlight – not anything we are used to at all. And the smell was a little iffy… The floor of the pool was covered in something not unlike talcum powder, although it was not sticky, nor did it dissolve, but I got a great kick out of sliding my feet through it. It was like a soft mud that moved all around my feet as I moved through it. I am pretty sure it was all the sulphur sitting on the bottom of the pool, but I can’t say for certain. There were lots of ‘bubbling-up-water’ bits and so I followed everyone else’s lead and sat myself down on one of the jets. This was jacuzzi heaven. Mark wandered over to the sectioned off bit and called me over once he realized how much hotter it was. It really was like being in a ginormous hot bath (with a lot of people around). This section had a big pipe raised up in the air dumping water, which we took turns standing under while it massaged our backs.
We hopped out of there and went and looked at the other pools. There was one that was oval shaped, with steps at either end of the short sections, and a walkway type thing on the long parts. People were just walking around in a clockwise direction, and then up the steps, and then back down into the water, and then continuing to walk around. We decided it was the ‘walk-around’ pool (ingenious hey)? So we joined the walk around, first down the steps and that was a nice warmish pool, much cooler than the one we had been in though, and was around hip-high. Up the steps at the other end and then down again, this time into quite cold water. Around and around we went, and it made my legs feel like the warm into freezing cold hammam baths at Cordoba. I was all tingly, and so obviously it’s good for the circulation. We went around about half a dozen times, and then moved onto another pool.
This next pool became my favourite, and I think I stayed in it for at least an hour, without really moving. It was hot, but not too hot, there was a shady bit which I hightailed it over to, and then found a big bubbly thing and just sat with my back up against it. It was FABULOUS. There was a guy in a very see-through pair of white boardies, doing something untoward to the fountain thingy, so we just avoided them (and him). Mark went and laid on one of the deck chairs in the sun for a while, I just stayed on the Jacuzzi jet and looked out over the olive trees and the hills of Tuscany. This is the life, I reckon!
It was getting close to time for us to leave, but there were two pools indoors that we just had to test out before we left. I think they were probably just the winter version of the outdoor pools – they were around the same temperature, but didn’t have any of the bubbly jets or fountainy waterfall things. But that was ok, we floated around in them for a little while so we could say we had been in every pool.
We went and washed off – you stay somewhat smelly once you hop out of the pools – and then hit the road back home, all mellow and stressfree. We had planned on cooking dinner for the night (because although there are restaurants in Cortona, neither one of us were keen to battle the driveway at Novole in the pitch dark of night) but decided to pull into a pizza place we kept passing on the way home.
The pizza was SO good, it made an excellent day that bit more excellent (excellenter?). We ordered the very big ‘Quattro Stagioni’ which had ¼ olives, ¼ mushrooms, ¼ prosciutto, and ¼ artichoke. This was seriously the best pizza either one of us have ever had. Thin crispy base, light tomato (sweet) sauce, and just the right amount of toppings. It was so good, we almost made it through the entire pizza (it was around a 40cm diameter) but kept one slice for lunch the next day.
~ There aren’t actually any photos for this day, but you'll find a photo of the pizza in tomorrow's album!
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