We are now on our northerly retreat out of Italy and into Southern France. This route will take us back through one of the most celebrated regions of this country, Tuscany. One of the things this region is well known for is its healing thermal springs. There are several places you can go to take a dip in these volcanic waters – some of them you have to pay for as they form a part of larger spa complexes. But there are also many free ones to be found and these are often way more impressive. The big ones to be aware of if you are in the area and looking for a free spa session are Petriolo, Saturnia and Bagni San Filippo among others. Today we are visiting La Cascatelle, located in the village of Saturnia in the Maremma area of Tuscany. Here you can enjoy these waters for free rather than paying to enter one of the many paid spa facilities in this village.
The thermal waters of Saturnia have flowed from underneath the Monte Amiata volcano for several millennia. The water emerges from the earth in the grounds of the Terme di Saturnia resort who have harnessed the appeal of its healing waters for monetary gain. It then winds its way through the neighbouring fields where you are able to swim in it for free before it finds its way down the Cascate del Mulino (waterfall of the mill) and into the milky white pools below. The rocks here are made of soft limestone, and the action of the water crashing down the waterfall for thousands of years has carved these beautiful terraced limestone pools which now act as communal baths, free to use all day every day for anyone who cares to. The fact that this place is free to enter absolutely blows me away. Anything this beautiful and luxurious would surely have been privatised by some clever soul had it been in England!
The roads that lead here are bumpy and very twisty. It’s not a problem for a larger vehicle, it’s not challenging if you take it slow. It does, however, seem that it has been challenging for poor Bam’s stomach. No more than three minutes away from reaching our destination, and with literally no warning, Bam projectile vomits all over the Motorhome floor, and her brother to boot! To make matters worse, it’s not that long since she had a large glass of milk with her breakfast cereal. Cue the clean-up operation. After mopping up the worst of it, the kids and myself are invited (politely of course!) to vacate the van and enjoy the views over the hill to the waters while Kate finishes up the details. A quick change of clothes and we continue on down the hill. Slowly.
Parking is available in a car park a few hundred metres up the road, but they do not accept motorhomes which are instead redirected to the nearest campsite. This however involves a good 20 minute walk in each direction. We choose instead to find a nearby piece of grass verge wide enough for the van and avoid the 10 euros parking fee, plus we only have to walk 5 minutes to reach the water. There is a small bar and restaurant immediately next to the waterfall where you can buy daily homemade dishes and refreshments, and there are showers and toilets available as well.
Several hours spent lounging around the various levels and pools of this beautiful place disappear very quickly. The kids have great fun smashing open rocks looking for crystals, and catching the tiny red worms which are wriggling around in the water (these look gross, but don’t worry they are completely harmless), and the best thing is that they never get cold here like they would during a day at the beach! It also gives me the perfect opportunity to give the drone an outing and get some decent aerial shots.
A couple of words of warning for anyone looking to enjoy a day in one of these natural thermal areas. Firstly, they are firmly based in nature. Don’t expect any of them to be clean, polished facilities. If you want that then go to one of the many spa resorts instead. This is an experience for lovers of the great outdoors. There will be mud, there will be insects, there will be weather. Just enjoy it for what it is. Secondly, the healing properties of these waters come with a slight side effect: they smell a bit like rotten eggs due to the sulphur content. And consequently you will also smell a bit like rotten eggs until you wash it off, and probably actually for a bit after that too. No matter though, we’ve all been in the water so we’ll all smell the same I guess!
The other major sight we wanted to visit while in this area is the famously leaning tower of Pisa. It is obviously a major tourist trap, full of people recreating the “holding up the tower” perspective photos (which of course we want to do!), but you can’t forget that it’s also famous for a more fundamental reason – it’s a beautifully constructed ancient tower which has survived an extremely long time despite its obvious architectural imperfections. It seems criminal to be in the area twice over the last few weeks and not visit, so we book a local campsite for the night and off we go.
I had read that it can be very difficult to drive into Pisa in a high vehicle, and if you happen to take a wrong turn you might find yourself confronted with a low bridge through which you can’t pass, potentially ending up bringing the local traffic to a standstill. Instead we choose to walk to the local train station and catch a train in to Pisa San Rossore, the local station. The one flaw in our plan, which our campsite hosts neglect to warn us of, is that the only way to walk the 20 minutes to the station is down a National speed limited tree-lined road without a pavement. As a side note, of all the countries we have recently visited in Europe, Italy is far and away the absolute worst in terms of quality of drivers. Despite it being illegal here, it seems that 75% of drivers are constantly using their mobile phones for calls and texts, and they LOVE to hassle the drivers in front of them, whilst simultaneously conducting horribly dangerous overtaking manoeuvres. Consequently, you can understand how this walk produced one or two squeaky-bum moments for us as responsible parents. However having mastered the technique of walking into traffic and seeking refuge between the trees with the approach of every car or van, we make our way to the train station and into Pisa.
The tower is predictably crawling with thousands of tourists vying for enough space to take their photos, as are we. After much jostling we obtain the necessary pictures to add to the memory vaults, and can dedicate the rest of our time to actually appreciating the obvious beauty of this gravity defying tower and its accompanying cathedral and baptistery, which are also simply fantastic but always neglected in favour of their famous campanile.
Apparently this building started leaning while still being built in the 12th century and was consequently not completed until the 14th century. Mussolini apparently attempted to correct it in the 20th century seeing it as an embarrassment, but only succeeded in making it worse. The pitch at which it leans finally reached 5.5 degrees by 1990, exceeding the point at which experts had predicted it would finally topple, and so it was decided to finally try to correct it. Using modern underpinning techniques the tower now leans at a much more respectable 3.97 degrees and is constantly monitored for any further signs of subsidence.
Having seen what we came here to see, we return to once again conquer the “ROAD OF DANGER” (please use booming voice of impending doom) as the kids referred to it and return to Discorama to continue on to our final Italian destination, Cinque Terre.