Cascate Del Mulino

We set out today not sure what the day would bring. Our first point of call was Sovana, another tufo town 9km northwest from Pitigliano. Sovana is much smaller than Pitigliano. The girls were already hungry when we arrived, so we stopped at the only bakery in the main (and only) street and bought two biscuits of unknown ingredients. Ella's looked like an almond type cookie. It was delicious at first but then had a horrible bitter cherry aftertaste rendering it inedible. Meanwhile Katy chose a dense looking cake a type of panforte I think. It was ok but very heavy and sweet. We continued along the street before looping back around on a small dirt road to arrive at the square where we began. Ella and Katy dubbed this town as a failure - nothing to see and the world's worst bakery, but I thought it was nice and quaint.

The next destination on our list was Cascate del Mulino (Mill Falls) located near Saturnia - a town renown for its thermal spas, another 22km west of Sovana. Unfortunately we had forgotten to pack our bathers for the trip and so we had to improvised with undies, t-shirts and running shorts! Of course the girls were adamant they were not going to swim and to be honest we weren't sure if we would either! But I stuck by my motto - better to have them and not use them than not take them and wished we'd brought them!

We had a fantastic view of the the waterfall on the approach into Saturnia. The girls were instantly excited by what they saw!

These thermal waters are rich in minerals, they first flow to the surface at the nearby posh spa resort. From there, the 37 °C warm waters flow downstream through fields until it reaches the waterfall at Cascate del Mulino. The old building was once a mill, using the water source to power the grain mill. Nowdays, people come to this area to relax in the shimmering blue warm waters.

Beside the mill, the water gushes over a waterfall before cascading through a series of natural pools created by the deposition of cancerous rock (travertine) due to the precipitation of minerals from the water. We quickly stripped off, a bit self conscious of our lack of suitable swimmer attire and entered the water. Once submerged in the water we noticed that anything really goes here - a few of the other young ladies had also forgotten some of their swimwear, but they swam nonetheless, much to the shock of our girls!!

Anyway, our girls quickly disappeared, clambering over ledges to explore each of the pools and eventually the waterfall next to the mill. It was really relaxing to float or have a spa under a cascade while overlooking the Tuscany countryside in the beautiful sunshine. Needless to say we spent a long time bathing!