Terme di Saturnia

Sulphurous Thermal Springs In The Tuscan Maremma Emerging At About 37 Degrees, With The Free Travertine Basins Of The Cascate Del Mulino And A Separate Private Spa Resort Above Them · Manciano, Tuscany

Sulphurous water comes out of the ground in the Maremma at about thirty-seven degrees, the temperature of a body, and has been running at roughly five hundred litres a second for as long as anyone has measured it. Where it drops over a ledge below an old mill it has built its own staircase of white travertine basins, each one a shallow pool you can sit in, and that part, the Cascate del Mulino, is free, open at any hour and has no gate, no attendant and no closing time. A few hundred metres up the hill the same spring feeds a walled spa resort with a hotel, a golf course and a large thermal pool, which charges accordingly. The confusion between the two is the single most common mistake visitors make. The water smells strongly of sulphur, it stains silver black and it does not wash out of a swimsuit, all of which people discover afterwards. Come in winter and after dark, when the air is cold, the basins steam and there is nobody else in them.

Localita Molino, Manciano, Tuscany, 58014, Italy

NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED, and the free falls genuinely have none: the Cascate del Mulino are ungated, unattended and open at any hour, including at night, which is when regulars use them. The adjacent car park, changing rooms and bar keep daytime and seasonal hours. THE TERME DI SATURNIA RESORT IS A SEPARATE BUSINESS with its own opening times, day-pass windows and booking, a few hundred metres uphill. The falls can close after heavy rain when the river rises.

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