Bagno Vignoni: 2000 Years Of Cleanliness

The baths and Rocca d'Orcia beyond.

Visiting Bagno Vignoni was an incredible look back into history. Picture a huge shallow swimming pool built around a bubbling hot spring. Beautiful roman architecture all around... like a bubbling, watery piazza. I thought this was on flat land, but there were amazing view from our car park.... yet again. So many hilltowns! (Will we actually get tired of this the way I got tired of castle after castle years ago in the Loire valley in France?) We walked around a bit, took photos, pondered Romans taking communal baths here--and some Popes too, we had read about--and then we were hungry for dinner...

There were some nice restaurants surrounding the baths, but in typical "we don't need your business" style, dinner wasn't served until 7:30! It was around six. So, they close for at few hours at lunch (so THEY can go home and have THEIR lunch and snuggle with the wife) and they close during the time most tourists want to eat. As my Dad used to say... they are real Lu-Lus!

So, onward to find dinner. Lucas wanted us to go "home" and cook but we'd have to shop first--a difficult thing to do when not all hilltowns have supermarkets or an amilentari that happens to be open when you need something. So we programmed a "walled town" (Buonconvento) I had already entered in my handy Tom-Tom and hunted for dinner. Within a half hour or so we pulled into Buonconvento,  appetites ready to go...

--Jerry F.

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