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A Visit to Tuscany: The Italian Spa Scene
By barbara
From Spas in Tuscany
The first time a man spoke Italian to me, I was on a plane making my way to Tuscany. His words rolled up and down, like the landscape of the enchanted world I was about to visit, and I savored the warmth of each foreign syllable, as full bodied as a glass of Chianti, until the man finally realized from my absolute silence that I was completely oblivious to the meaning of what he was saying. His soft brown eyes sparkled with amusement.
"First time to Italy?" he asked in perfectly enunciated English.
I smiled broadly. "How'd you guess?"
My much-anticipated week of luxurious relaxation in Tuscan spas had officially begun.
What is a Spa?
Spas have been a part of European culture for thousands of years. The spring waters found in Bath, England were used for medicinal purposes as far back as 800 B.C. Hippocrates of Hippocratic oath fame was said to have recommended hydrotherapy for treatment of rheumatism and jaundice in ancient Greece. The term "spa" is actually derived from a celebrated town of Hot Springs called Spa in east Belgium that was once a part of the vast Roman Empire. The Romans themselves viewed baths of mineral and thermal water as therapeutic. Baths, or spas, were also great gathering places for the social elite.Today the word spa also means "fashionable resort." In my mind, reed-thin people work in spas, lighting blue candles for aromatherapy, speaking in hushed tones, serving fresh fruit and Evian to clients. Relaxing music enhances the mood of any such retreat: soft notes caress the spirit as surely as a masseuse's fingers dance across a person's body.
Spas are full of hardwood floors, gauze-like curtains, fresh flowers, funky art, and the muted lighting of a monastery.
So where am I?
Imagine my surprise when the first Italian spa I visited was full of glaring light, brown and white tiles, and cold metal tables with paper sheets pulled across them! While undressing in front of an attendant dressed head-to-toe in nurse's white, loud and fast music pumping through an overhead speaker, I began to anticipate my first "relaxing" facial with the special zeal I normally reserve for my yearly pap smear.I pulled on a very small pair of paper underwear and shifted uncomfortably in my bare feet on the cold floor.
I felt as if I had checked into a hospital.
In a way, I had.
Spas are hospitals?
Italian spas are a part of the Italian healthcare system. Thermal springs are still viewed as places of great medicinal import. The Italian government actually subsidizes twelve days of spa treatments each year for its citizens as ways to maintain and improve upon health.
Even the most luxurious spas have sections devoted purely to medical treatment. All spas either contract doctors or have medical personnel on staff to prescribe treatments to clients. Machines that turn thermal water into a thin, warm mist are reputed to help with sinus and respiratory conditions. Special types of fango---mud that has been enriched by the minerals in thermal water---are used to relax muscles and ease pain caused by arthritis and other degenerative conditions. Hydrotherapy increases circulation while decreasing high blood pressure. Water ingested from thermal springs in thermal parks soothes liver and digestive ailments. In fact, thermal waters are used by spas to treat a wide range of physical problems including vaginitis and ear infection.
Mixing Luxury and Medicine
Even while the healing validity of spas has historically been a large part of their attraction, modern medicine provides many remedies to the sick that did not exist in ancient Roman times--or even at the latter part of the twentieth century. Spa directors, who see much of their existing clientele aging, realize they must offer services that will attract new generations of visitors.
Stress is commonly recognized as the number one contributor to the onset of many diseases in modern society; therefore, spa treatments aimed at stress reduction benefit health. For this reason, some Italian spas are making use of their natural assets to create relaxing atmospheres that are not sterile or medicinal in nature.
With a rakish smile on his beaming face, the charismatic spa director of the Terme de Giulani told me, "My staff can make you forget your problems, but those problems might find you again after check-out: all the more reason to plan for a long stay in Tuscany."
Good advice like this should be taken. After all, wellness centers in Italian spas are specifically designed to promote mental relaxation and beauty in clients, and some of these wellness centers truly are places of luxurious indulgence.
This is More Like It!
The Grotta Giusti Terme is one example of a well-appointed, charming spa nestled in the hills of Tuscany. Placed like a jewel on grounds so beautiful and well groomed, only poetry could do them justice, the main building was once home to an Italian poet. Today the rooms in the hotel are splendidly furnished in gold and green, with tall windows that open to small balconies for better views of the surrounding countryside.
When the Grotta Giusti Terme was still a private residence in 1849, laborers located an underground grotto with a pretty blue lake that filled the air with minerals and heat that proved to be especially beneficial for people suffering from rheumatism and arthritis. This natural wonder has since become the centerpiece of the spa.
At an appointed time during my visit to the Grotta Giusti Terme, I walked down the narrow passageway from the spa to the grotto. All was quiet except the droplets of water that rhythmically fell from the beige stalactites hanging from the ceiling. A silent attendant hung my maroon robe for me, leaving me dressed in a white gown so I'd be more comfortable to wander the different sections of the grotto. The air in Paradiso felt the coolest, but I soon settled into the wet heat of the Inferno, the deepest and hottest spot in the grotto, to enjoy my natural steam bath.
Many spas also extol the virtues of their ancient locations as reasons for a relaxing visit to their facilities. The Terme di Montepulciano located in one of the most charming of all Italian cities— Montepulciano—with its beautiful Tempio di San Biagio, place of Catholic pilgrimage. Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein during a stay at the Terme di Giuliano, only a short distance from historic Pisa and the walled city of Lucca. The Terme di Montecatini is found near beautifully structured thermal parks built around revered thermal springs.
Other spas such as the Terme di Casciana and the Terme di Saturnia have outdoor thermal pools for client enjoyment.
The thermal pools at the Terme di Saturnia come from a natural reservoir 600 feet below the ground. Surging at a rate of 800 liters per second, the water is naturally kept at a constant temperature of 37 degrees C or 98 degrees F. This was interesting for me as I had been told many times as a child about the German spas in which my father used to bathe in winter that had chunks of ice in the waters.
In December I took an early evening swim in the Saturnia thermal pool. While the air was brisk, the sulfurous water was warm and inviting--a hot bath of rich minerals that soaked into my skin. I treaded water in the middle of the pool as the sky turned purple and pink on the horizon. I felt my body relaxing, my mind drifting to a legend about the god Saturn who threw a lightning bolt into the earth to release the waters of a thermal spring for the enjoyment of the area's people.
When I pulled my robe over my bathing suit to make my way through the four star resort back to my room, I was satisfied that my original idea of what a spa should be had been realized.
From the varied treatments offered in the spa, to the spacious rooms and succulent meals, the Terme di Saturnia is truly a retreat well suited to any spa lover.
A member of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World, it is located in a historical and beautiful section of Maremman Tuscany. Visitors may easily access Estruscan paved roads inside ancient villages such as Sovana. Walks are taken through the hills of the Albegna. Day trips to famous cities of cultural import such as Florence are quickly accomplished. Treatments such as plantar reflexology, a technique in which the feet are massaged to achieve overall relaxation of the body, then await the weary wanderer upon his return to the spa.
All Good Things Must End
While spas in Tuscany were different from what I had envisioned, my trip back to the airport in Rome was a sad and nostalgic one. The countryside beside the winding roads of Tuscany shimmered gold in the morning light. Ancient buildings and farmhouses seemed a part of the landscape. There were so many paths left unexplored, so many cultural experiences left unrealized, that I began to plan another visit before the first had ended. And the first thought I had when my plane touched ground in New York City?
I needed a good massage to feel myself again.
