NOVEMBER 2020
When I heard that Tuscany has thermal baths I knew these needed to be on our itinerary. Therme di Saturnia is the most famous bath in Tuscany, but we decided on visiting a spot a little less popular: Bagni San Filippo. This day turned out to be our favorite day from our holiday, the thermal baths were such a special sight and the water was divine. An absolutely relaxing way to start your day! I don’t think the pictures do this place justice, but I will try with this blog.
Practical information
Bagni San Filippo are free to visit, you only need to be in time for a (paid) parking spot. We made sure to arrive before 9AM and there was still plenty of parking space left and we almost had the baths to ourselves. By 10AM the baths filled up pretty quickly, so I would advise to come before that. There is sulfur in the hot springs, which you can smell, I wasn’t too bothered by it (even being pregnant). Sulfur will damage your hair, so I put my hair up and covered it with a hat. There are no facilities such as lockers and showers at Bagni San Filippo so beware of that before you visit. I don’t have any particular footwear to recommend, the Bagni are a small hike down from the parking lot. I just took my shoes off once we arrived at the baths and walked barefoot. You can visit the baths year-round as the water has a constant temperature of about 37 degrees. I get cold easily and even though it was a warm day in September I sometimes had to search a bit for the hottest areas. Bagni San Filippo are located in a very nice area of Tuscany, near Val d’Orcia. This means there are plenty of activities and idyllic villages nearby and I would recommend to take at least a full day to explore this region.
We visited during the COVID-19 pandemic and I cannot say that guidelines were followed by tourists (mainly Italians). We tried to keep our distance and succeeded because we visited early in the morning. However, the Italians did not seem to try to keep their distance from us. When a bath was mostly empty, they often chose to still sit right next to us. This was exactly why we decided to visit Bagni San Filippo instead of the even more popular Therme di Saturnia.
Bagni San Filippo
The Bagni were so dreamy I couldn’t believe I was in Italy: the baths reminded me of similar places in Mexico and Iceland. I loved how you could also get adventurous; climbing to the isolated higher located baths. I don’t know if my pictures will do the Bagni justice, so I included some videos as well.
Videos
These are just some iPhone videos, but I hope they give a good impression of the natural beauty of Bagni San Filippo.