Saturnia

Tuesday 30 November.
Today we went to a magical place.

The thermal river springs at Saturnia...
The hot river cascades at this location forming shallow pools perfect for bathing in and we quickly got used to the sulphur smell..... FUN!

What is so incredible about it is the complete lack of infrastructure. A free public place that is always open and accessible, night and day. It is easy to imagine that it might have been like this for the last few hundred years with people coming to bathe just as we were doing....on this day there were only 4-5 other people there.

 

The pools seemed to be carved out of a soft, spongy rock, with soft pebbles at the bottom.
We sat in the open air under the waterfalls or resting in the pools looking out over the fields

It was a cold day which made it particularly hard to get out of the water, but finally after 2 hours, happy and invigorated, we piled back into the car and drove to Pitigliano 20km away for a hot chocolate and a walk through the streets.

We bought wild boar salami at this amazing delicatessan that seemed to specialise in only that....

Excuse the pic of a postcard .....it's such a beautiful town, but we didn't stay long as it quickly became dark and started raining and I couldn't get a shot...Home happy and tired.......A magical day.

*******

After much pleading from the children, we went back again on Wedneday 1st December when Janie and Porgie finally arrived.

This time we had the place all to ourselves :)

...and had even better hot chocolates afterwards in nearby Manciano at a cafe that specialised in different Lindt flavours!

 Janie and Annick with her white chocolate

 and Eve with hers...note display cabinet behind! The Italians love their soft toys....

 and Chiara with her 'classico'....

...and managed to get a parking ticket that are a lot more reasonable than ours but still annoying....
Not even that put a damper on another perfect day.

We love Saturnia.....definitely up there with Disneyland..