Villas near hot springs

Central Italy — Tuscany especially — floats on a giant pond of bubbling geothermal water. Spread across the region, our villas near hot springs and natural geothermal spas put you within a half-hour (or so) of many spots for indoor and outdoor bathing in its healing mineral waters.

Best known among the Tuscan spa towns is Montecatini Terme, whose grand Art Nouveau spas are temples to wellness. They offer treatments for your digestion, mineral baths for a relaxing soak, and alkaline mud wraps. They even bring a bit of movie cachet: Terme Tettuccio was the backdrop for Federico Fellini’s 8½.

At nearby Monsummano Terme, the Grotta Giusti is an underground thermal cave, complete with stalactites and stalagmites. Natural detoxifying steam keeps the cavern around 30°C all year. You can pull up a lounger and get a subterranean sweat on.

In the gentle hills of southern Tuscany and the Maremma, Tuscany’s thermal waters bubble to the surface in many different spots, most famously (and photogenically) at Saturnia hot springs. Here 800 litres rise to the surface at 37°C every second. You can soak outdoors for free at the Cascate del Mulino. At this photogenic spot beside an old mill, a waterfall forms a series of shallow, cobalt-blue pools. Skin, joints and respiration are said to benefit.

Bagno Vignoni was the favourite spa of St. Catherine of Siena, Italy’s patron saint. A vast stone bath sits where the village square ought to be. It was here Catherine took to healing waters rich in magnesium and calcium sulphate. These days, visitors can bathe outdoors beside the town’s old mills or buy a day pass to one of Bagno Vignoni’s day spas.

At the Terme di Vulci, on the border of Tuscany and Lazio close to the town of Tuscania, you can bathe in a series of four outdoor pools. Each is at a different temperature (the warmest is 42°C); all are rich in iron from a natural thermal spring. You’ll also find medicinal spas packed into Chianciano Terme, near Montepulciano; and open-air thermal bathing near Bagni San Filippo and Bagni di Petriolo.

All our villas near hot springs have their own private swimming pool. Like every TN&M guest, you also have free access to our award-winning concierge service. You concentrate on relaxing while we order shopping, book you a table at the best local restaurant, or arrange a Tuscan cookery class in your villa kitchen.

If you are the kind of person who prefers the hot water all to yourself, we also have a special collection of villas with hot tubs. We can’t promise any healing properties, but in our experience, soaking up views of Tuscany and Umbria is a tonic for the soul.