The Hot Springs of Viterbo ~

A quartet of us girls decided to take it upon ourselves to troop to these hot springs we've heard of. 2 hours on the train, trudging in the downpour and a bus later ... we saw the vapors rising from lonely green pastures. Viterbo delivered.

4 tranquil blue pools lie in the middle of nowhere in the Italian countryside with fragments of ancient ruins nearby. A muddy area functions as a makeshift parking lot for the locals who drive by and languidly spend their entire days here. I decided to forgo the Terme de Papi nearby (Terme = "thermal baths" in Italian) since it cost 18 euros to get in but they do have a 2,000 square meter pool - so epic! And I'm too lazy to convert those meters to feet. The outdoor pools we found were free, free, free and being fed by a natural source trickling right into the shallows of water.

Most of the bathers were older folk and yes, speedos are apparently still in fashion, not that I wanted to know. The sky was gray and stormy with a few streams of sunlight, the water sulphorous but deliciously soothing and the girls and I practically had an entire pool to ourselves. The day ended once our fingers resembled raisins and we shot out of the pools rounding the corner of a limestone wall to change back into civilian clothing. I don't think I've had a photo of me only in a bathing suit since I was 15 (for good reason). But what the hey! We even had to bust out umbrellas at one point as the skies opened up and let loose a smattering of droplets, it was simply glorious.