“I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list”— Susan Sontag
Four years ago this very month, Tim went to the Winter Olympics in Torino to see our nephew, Anders Johnson, compete as the youngest member of the US Ski Jumping Team. At a scant 16 years of age, he was certainly the pride of our family for those two special weeks and Tim wanted to be there to cheer him on. I wanted to be there, too, but I knew that the trip was going to be a little tough for me, both accommodations-wise and getting-around-wise. I’m not good in cold, snowy weather. My joints ache, I’m terrified of falling and I get cranky real fast. Best to stay home. This year we’ll both be watching the Vancouver Olympics together from the warmth of our living room — and our nephew will be back on the hill for a second run at a medal.
But Tim couldn’t get away with crossing the pond — especially to Italy — without my wanting to do the same at a more agreeable time of year. So my friend Sharon and I decided that we would do a girl’s trip. We’d go someplace our guys wouldn’t want to go. It had to be less than two weeks in length, and it had to be a tour of some kind, because neither of us will drive abroad. So we went on the internet together from our respective offices and surfed.
Ireland? Maybe, but all the tours looked a little hokey. Paris? We’d both been there before and loved it, but decided that if we went again, it would be with a significant other. So we opted for Italy and started looking at tours. I spotted it immediately: a Tuscan Spa Trip. Perfect! Nine days and the price was right. Best of all, we could take an optional trip to one of our favorite cities, Lucca — the walled medieval city that was once the capital of Tuscany. And we could also take an optional trip to the Cinque Terre, which we missed on our last trip to Italy together due to monsoon-like conditions. I called the tour operator, Go Ahead Tours, and booked the trip for that September.
The tour company had run this trip nine times before, and it had always been an all-girl event. But when we arrived, there were 34 women and two men, all eager to get started on our adventure. One had given the trip to his wife for their 35th wedding anniversary; the other gave the trip to his wife to show her a bit of his Italian heritage. They fit right in with the rest of us and enjoyed the spa treatments possibly even more than we girls did. But how could they not enjoy this trip?
We flew into Florence, where we were met by our guide and whisked off to Montecatini Terme (“thermal”), located about 28 miles west, in the healing Valdinievole (“Valley of Mists”). Built around its mineral water springs, Montecatini has long been a respite for travelers seeking a cure for stomach and liver troubles and a myriad other ailments. It’s also just a great place to visit and has hosted celebrities from Giuseppe Verdi and Luigi Pirandello to Princess Grace and Clark Gable. The spa promised in the tour package was not, in fact, in Montecatini, but we did get a chance to tour the most famous one in town, Tettuccio Terme, before heading off to our own unique experience.
- The Fountain at Tettuccio Terme
The spa Tettuccio is one of three thermal spas built in the late 1700s by Leopold of Hapsburg, the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Together, they made Montecatini famous throughout Europe. Its liberty architecture, park setting (including a carousel just outside the spa) and spa treatments — a variety of therapeutic massages, mud packs and hydrotherapy — make for an elegant and enjoyable destination.
Montecatini itself is also famous for cialde, a yummy thin wafer-like biscuit made with nothing more than sugar and almonds, and also panforte (a Sienese confection that is a cross between fruit cake and candy, usually served with port or dessert wine), the very best of both to be found at the over-the-top patisserie, Giovannini. Montecatini is also famous, in my book at least, for having a fantastic statue of a cinghiale (wild boar) at the Tettuccio Terme — a monument to one of my very favorite Italian words and a heck of a good meat for prosciutto.
Sharon and Linda and the cinghiale
But what about the spa, you ask? Ah, the spa . . . Three times during our stay, we were taken about 20 minutes away to the town of Monsummano, home of the Grotta Giusti,
Cinghiale as prosciutto, Montecatini Terme
The Grotta was discovered accidentally in 1849 when Domenico Giusti, an administrator for one of the area’s wealthiest families, was informed by some laborers working in a nearby lime quarry that they had discovered a cavity with hot steam coming out of it — a natural well, perhaps. He had them enlarge the opening and coaxed a few volunteers to go down and inspect the thing and when they surfaced, they had tales of wondrous stalactite and stalagmite formations and a small steaming lake whose fumes and heat made them sweat profusely. One of the laborers who had stayed down longer than the others said he felt considerably better. Some notable physicians were called in to study the grotto and soon confirmed its clinical effectiveness for many ailments. Word spread, treatment rooms and a hotel were added, and even Giuseppe Garibaldi — Italy’s national hero — partook of the waters and enthusiastically claimed them to be effective.
Of course Garibaldi was not there when we arrived, but actor Steve Guttenberg (of “Police Academy” movie fame) was. We (mostly) girls had a blast. Having chosen from three spa treatments as part of the package — with plenty of opportunities to purchase more if we wanted — we began by lazing around the huge outdoor thermal pool and having lunch in the adjacent restaurant. I selected a cooling citrus facial, a full-body mud assault and a restorative body massage given by a beautiful young man named Marco whose only English words were “turn over, please.”
Below ground the Grotta itself, of the “miraculous atmosphere,” was once described by Verdi as “the eighth wonder of the world.” Visitors travel in a single row in silence through three different zones, each one hotter than the next, called, aptly, Paradise, Purgatory and Hell. The lake that those laborers first saw is in what’s now called Limbo, and remains at a year-round temperature of 36 degrees C. The air temperature in Hell is around 34 degrees C (92 degrees F), with 100% humidity. One stays in Hell only for about 20 minutes, in perfunctory robe and slippers, sprawled out on a teak lounge chair, water dripping from the low ceiling. It is unlike anything I have ever done, but get me a ticket and I’ll go back tomorrow. I cannot make scientific claims about the efficacy of the Grotta Giusti, but my sinuses felt much better, my joints didn’t ache nearly as much and I felt a few pounds lighter on the way home. Sharon experienced a similar sense of well-being. And after that, we went back to Montecatini and ate large quantities of the best gnocchi with gorgonzola, peas and prosciutto that we had ever had.
Puccini statue, Lucca
Local guides in Lucca and Florence made the cities come to life, even for those of us who had been there before. And despite the rain, we went to the Cinque Terre this time anyway (only seeing two cities because of the weather, I call it the Due Terre trip) and took tons of photos standing among the colorful fishing boats on the shore. On the last day we visited a local agriturismo where they cultivate their own olive oil, wines and honey, and sampled everything greedily. Dinner in Fiesole, overlooking Florence, was a breathtaking conclusion to a fantastic (mostly) girl’s week away. And food? After a week of rich meats and pasta, the group was rabidly envious of my verdure misto, a huge platter of spectacular grilled vegetables — fennel, eggplant, zucchini, onions, yellow and red peppers — that I grudgingly shared. Never had a vegetable tasted so good.
I don’t know if I’ll ever get the chance to do this again, just go out with the (mostly) girls. We laughed a great deal and even sang on the bus. We watched out for each other. We made friends. We made discoveries — I remember the first night when one of our group was shocked to learn that she should have brought a bathing suit. She just assumed, this being Europe and all, that suits were optional. I didn’t envy her having to buy a bathing suit at the spa. Even the postcards were expensive!
Bounty in Monterosso
So we came back home in that rested-but-jangled condition that almost always accompanies travel, glad for the experience, sad that it was over yet somehow eager to get started again in our “real” life. To try to bring what we had seen and experienced into our day-to-day existence. Or at least to hold it all in some special place so that when the going got rough, we could remember a time when all we had to do was breathe deeply, follow the leader and “turn over, please.”
Buon viaggio!
Linda Dini Jenkins is a card-carrying Italophile, travel planner, freelance writer, and amateur photographer. Travel is her passion, so writing about her travels just comes naturally. She hopes all her travelers find a way to express their joys, surprises, and fears as they travel and gives every traveler a nifty journal to help smooth the way. Learn more…
