There's nothing better than doing a mud bath right here. Gorgeous.
Ladies and gentlemen, Vagabuddies, welcome back to the channel.
Right now I am in Tuscany.
I'm on a road trip with my girlfriend, Carrie Rad,
and we are standing above
what might be the most beautiful hot springs I have ever seen.
The Saturnia Hot Springs in southern Tuscany.
Oh my god. I cannot wait to get in there.
Might be the most beautiful hot springs you've ever seen.
Oh my gosh. That is like a hot springs wonderland.
We turned around that corner right there,
and it just opened up to this view and both of our jaws just dropped.
Look at that.
It's hot spring Disneyland,
but only has about five people in it
because of the time that we're here, which is amazing.
All right. Well we just got to the hot springs,
incredible place, very mellow, never seen anything like this with the water
just like cascading down into all of these natural pools
nestled up against this old mill here.
It's got to be one of the nicest free natural hot springs in the world,
and we're super excited to get in.
We will see you on the other side of this bath.
This is definitely the most beautiful hot spring I've ever been to.
It's not the hottest.
It is hotter than the temperature outside, which is nice when you're in the water
or you feel like it's just the perfect temperature.
As soon as you raise up a little bit, it gets a bit colder.
But we are here in February, so it's cold here right now,
but it still feels so good and just looking around,
it's incredible.
It's huge and I've just never been to hot spring this big.
Well, for our first stop in Tuscany,
that was incredible.
I think I could just live in that pool, honestly,
but there's more hot spring to explore.
There's much more to explore.
So we're going to pack up, head into the car and drive north.
A bit of a surprise here.
We are surrounded by snow.
This is a two-wheel drive car.
So we're driving very carefully and trying to avoid the patches of snow.
Okay ladies gentlemen. Good morning.
It is hot spring number two here in Tuscany
We are at the Bagni San Filippo.
First made it into the history books because a hermit lived here in the 13th century and
I have to say if I were going to be a religious hermit,
I would definitely be posted up right next to a hot spring.
Can't have sex.
Can't you know do very many other fun things,
but you can soak and soaking almost makes up for all the rest of the stuff.
We're going to head down this little trail, beautiful little forest right below the snowline.
Had a bit of a surprise last night driving here.
Google Maps routed us through this little back road,
and we popped out in the old town of
some town around here and
quite literally got in the car pretty much stuck.
Thank God. That was ridiculous, honestly
Well mud treatment, first and foremost, is an exfoliant because of the grain in the mud.
Removes dead skin and at the same time, it moisturizes because this mud has been sitting at the bottom of this
sulfur bath for so long just like accumulating minerals,
just adding all that into your skin.
That's kind of why a lot of these hot springs out here in Tuscany were
made famous originally in the 13th century.
A hermit, a religious hermit, came out here and decided it was a pretty good place to
worship the Lord.
But after that, a lot of these spa towns in Europe in the
1800s became very popular with people who had
different ailments, sicknesses
for modern medicine.
Almost everything could be cured by soaking in mineral waters,
but for me, I'm still a big fan of just coming out to the natural places
because you can't get any better than this.
If you go to a spa, especially in Los Angeles, and get a mud bath
it's going be anywhere from $60, at the very lowest, to $160 to $400.
It just depends on where you're going.
But here you can do it completely free in Tuscany obviously and you can experience this.
I think there's nothing better than doing a mud bath right here.
Gorgeous
Well ladies and gentlemen, we have been very lucky to have this entire thermal spring to ourselves all morning.
But it's been about two hours of soaking.
We've had a free mud treatment, and
I think we're ready to pack things up and continue the road trip.
So let's go explore more of Tuscany.
So now we are at the town of Bagno Vignoni
There is also a thermal resort here
and the ruins of these old mills and a pretty incredible sulfur wall
right here that just drops off.
Got a view of one of the hilltop towns in the background.
Castles all covered with steaming hot springs.
It's pretty awesome, but supposedly
they have a main plaza here,
and in the plaza is a big thermal
pool right in the middle of the plaza.
Don't think you can bathe in it anymore,
but it's supposedly very beautiful.
So we're going to go check it out.
Not going to lie... little bit let down.
Supposed to have the thermal pool right in the middle of town,
built in the Renaissance by the Medicis who bathed here.
If you don't know anything about the Medicis, read the Prince by Machiavelli.
Learn how to be a global leader, a little bit ruthless, a little bit antiquated, but still a good read.
And yet here we are...no bagno.
Still a beautiful little town, though.
Going to putz around, try to grab a cappuccino, and I think it's time to "andiamo."
So we asked around town and the reason why the bath is drained
is because over time it accumulates algae, totally natural,
but they have to empty it every once in a while and scrape it clean.
Right as we're leaving, the bath is being filled again.
Where we off to you now?
Pienza, little town.
We figured it'd be good to get a place for a couple of nights.
Alex has some laundry he needs to wash from being in Scotland.
But we figured going into a city where we can get some dinner, wash our clothes, get a hot shower.
For some reason we've been struggling to find hot water at the last few places that we've stayed.
So other than the natural hot water, true,
but we need to get some of that sulfur off of us because we go a little bit stinky right now, I could imagine.
Let's go.
Good morning Vagabuddies. It is a beautiful day here in Pienza, Tuscany that's known for its pecorino cheese
And it's also known for just being a really lovely little hilltop town.
Just watch the sun rise out over the countryside
from the edge of the town walls,
and now we're going to go grab a cappuccino.
So stick around.
Pienza has a pretty interesting history.
It wasn't always known as Pienza.
It was first mentioned back in the 9th century under the name Corsignano,
and it would keep that name until the mid 1400s when a young man
eventually to become a very influential man named Pope Pius II renamed the town, his hometown, after himself.
When you're pope, why not make your hometown a vacation home and rename it after yourself?
I mean come on, it's the 1400s, right?
But he rebuilt the town,
and he did it in the Renaissance style.
This was the first time this had ever happened in history.
The entire town was rebuilt
by a very influential architect from Florence.
The architect's name was Bernardo Rossellino.
He began reconstruction in 1459,
and he finished his masterpiece in 1462
Il duomo, which was consecrated by Pope Pius the second.
The town was made a Unesco World Heritage site in 1996,
and the entire Val d' Orcia was made a Unesco
cultural landscape in 2004.
Definitely worth visiting.
It's super small, but it's beautiful.
What is the best part about Pienza?
Well the restaurants, yeah. They are all very good.
It's a beautiful town.
We've been here last summer, and we enjoyed it very much.
I keep thinking about what this place is like during the summer when it's nice and hot outside,
and there's a bunch of people.
Right now all of the restaurants have the chairs kind of stuck together,
and there's only a few restaurants here, and they're open right now.
But the cool thing about it right now
Is that you can walk through the streets.
You feel like you're the only person here.
It feels like a movie set.
You can kind of explore and get an idea of each little nook.
It's really, really, really beautiful.
This is definitely my favorite part of Pienza.
The view that you get of the countryside..
There's a wall that lines the town,
and you can just come stand here and stare at that view all day.
It looks like a painting.
All right ladies and gentlemen, this is where we're going to have to say, "arrivederci."
Hopefully you enjoyed this journey through Tuscany as much as we did,
whether it was the hot springs or the beautiful old town of Pienza.
If you did enjoy this video
please give it a big thumbs- up, share with your friends,
subscribe and turn on notifications.
And if you haven't already, make sure you're subscribed to Carrie's channel, as well.
But don't leave just yet.
We're not quite done.
We're heading to Venice tomorrow for carnevale.
In the meantime remember:
stay curious, keep exploring, and we will see you on the road.
Peace.