The best hot-spring towns within 75 minutes of Pisa
Warm sulphurous water has been coming out of the ground on this side of Tuscany for as long as anyone has recorded it, and the towns above the springs are built from what was to hand: grey pietra serena, plastered brick, marble offcuts from the quarries inland. Winter is the season for it, when the vapour hangs over the pools and the air smells faintly of eggs and wet stone. The bathing is usually attached to a town rather than a resort, which means a bar for coffee before and a table afterwards, chestnut flour and wild boar in the hills, salt cod and chickpeas nearer the coast. Some of the establishments are grand liberty-era pavilions with colonnades and orchestras, others are a hot stream running through a field.
The name most people search for is Saturnia, down in the Maremma, where the terraced travertine pools have become one of the most photographed sights in the region. It deserves the attention and pays for it: the free cascades fill from early morning, the car parks overflow at weekends, and the road in becomes a queue for a bathe. Nothing about the water has changed, but the arrival has, and it is a long drive from Pisa for a crowded pool.
The same geology runs north and west, up the Arno plain and along the coast towards Livorno, which is why so many towns near Pisa have a spa quarter, a drinking fountain of mineral water or a bathhouse dating from when doctors sent patients here for the cure. Fewer people go to these, partly because the famous ones are elsewhere, partly because a working town with thermal water reads as less of an occasion. They are close enough to reach after landing and worth a detour on the way to somewhere else.
Of the 35 communes we have mapped in a 75-minute drive of Pisa, 6 qualify as hot-spring towns: each has thermal water a town has been built around. The smallest, Montaione, has 3,492 residents.
If you are still choosing, we have also written The best hot-spring towns within 90 minutes of Florence and The best hidden hot spring towns you can reach by train in Toscana.
Montaione
Why visit Montaione
Montaione sits at 341 meters on a ridge above the Valdelsa, in the wooded hills west of Florence on the road toward Volterra. Etruscan and Roman finds at Poggio all'Aglione, Bellafonte and Iano confirm continuous occupation across the territory, material now held in the town's archaeological museum.
The medieval castello was the seat of an autonomous comune from 1256 and passed to Florence in 1369. From the early fourteenth century, glassmaking ran in the surrounding woods, and an eighteenth-century decree by the Grand Duke required master glassmakers to teach the craft to their fellow citizens.
The town joined Borghi più belli in 2007. The territory spreads well beyond the ridge itself.
Five kilometers west, a Franciscan convent founded in 1500 stands in the woods, its chapels laid out as a walkable replica of Jerusalem's holy sites. Ten kilometers south, Castelfalfi carries a separate, older Lombard origin, now a resort with its own vineyards and church.
Between them, the centro storico keeps the civic core: the tower, the palace, the parish church rebuilt on twelfth-century foundations. The comune, in effect, holds three distinct centuries of settlement at once: an ancient scatter of finds, a fourteenth-century craft economy, and a devotional complex from the 1500s, spread across ridge, castle and wood rather than gathered in one place.
What to see in Montaione
- Sacro Monte di San Vivaldo. Complex five kilometers west of the borgo. Seventeen chapels stand among oak woods, each holding a scene built as part of the topographical replica, still reached on foot along the paths between them.
- Castelfalfi. Lombard-origin castle and frazione ten kilometers south, restored as a private resort with vineyards and a Romanesque church of San Floriano.
- Centro storico. Medieval grid on the ridge, with the Palazzo Pretorio, the Torre del Cassero and the Chiesa di San Regolo restored after 1118 foundations.
How to get to Montaione
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Firenze is roughly 67 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the months Montaione shows best, the Valdelsa light low on the wooded ridges and the San Vivaldo chapels in their full October ochre. The Mostra del Tartufo Bianco runs the last weekend of October and the first of November. July and August push past thirty in the valley but the centro storico at 341 meters stays manageable.
Montignoso
Why visit Montignoso
Montignoso sits at 132 meters at the foot of the Apuan Alps, between Massa and Pietrasanta, in the corner where Massa-Carrara province meets Versilia. Inland, the hill village stands under the castle's rise; the coastal frazione lies well apart from it, opening onto the Versilia beach, so the commune is really two settlements, one on the slope and one on the sand, with the wetland reserve filling the plain between them.
The town declined through the sixteenth century because of coastal malaria, which explains the gap between the fortified hill and the later life of the shore: the two halves of Montignoso grew up in different centuries for the same reason, one retreating from the coast, the other only possible once that reason had passed. The thermal signal comes from a small spring on the Pasquilio side of the commune.
Read together, Montignoso is a place defined less by any single site than by the line running from mountain to marsh to sea, each part settled on its own schedule.
What to see in Montignoso
- Castello Aghinolfi. The castle stands on an isolated rise above the village. What remains is the strongpoint that once taxed and watched the road below, not a ruin left to itself but a position, still legible as one.
- Lago di Porta. The reserve covers the coastal plain, flat water against the line of the Apuan Alps. The gate it is named for is gone; the wetland it left behind is not.
- Cinquale. Fine sand with the Apuan Alps rising directly behind it, a seafront quieter than its better-known neighbor and shaped by that comparison rather than by its own crowds.
How to get to Montignoso
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Pisa is roughly 52 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May through September brings the Cinquale beach into use and the trails to the Castello Aghinolfi clear of winter rain. June and September are the cleanest weather. July and August fill the seaside parking and push the Pasquilio uplands into wildfire-risk hours.
Livorno
Why visit Livorno
Livorno is the Tuscan coast you don't expect: Medici-founded in 1577 as Nova Civitas, planned from scratch by Bernardo Buontalenti as a free port to rival Genoa and Venice, and unique among Tuscan cities for being entirely a Renaissance-era invention rather than a medieval inheritance. The original pentagonal city walls enclosed a Venetian-style quarter (Venezia Nuova) laced with navigable canals where merchant warehouses opened directly to the water — Jews, Greeks, Armenians, English, Dutch and North Africans were all invited to settle under the 1591–1593 'Livornine' laws granting freedom of worship and trade, making Livorno the most cosmopolitan port on the Mediterranean for two centuries.
What you see today: Fortezza Vecchia (1521) and Fortezza Nuova (1590) guarding the inner harbour; the four bronze Moors (1626) chained to the base of Ferdinando I's monument facing the port; the Terrazza Mascagni (a 1925 Art Deco chequerboard promenade with 4,100 black-and-white tiles facing the Tyrrhenian); the Cattedrale rebuilt after 1944 bombing; the Pentagono di Buontalenti street grid still visible from above. The Macchiaioli painters' movement was born here in the 1860s (Fattori, Lega, Signorini all lived and painted the local light).
Modigliani was born in Livorno in 1884. And the food: cacciucco — a 5-fish stew with toasted bread and red wine, the city's totemic dish — plus ponce alla livornese (rum-spiked coffee) at the Caffè Civili.
The Tuscan archipelago (Capraia, Gorgona, Elba) ferries out from the port within view of the promenade.
What to see in Livorno
- Terrazza Mascagni. A 1925 Art Deco seafront promenade with 4,100 black-and-white tiles facing the open Tyrrhenian — locals call it the world's most beautiful balcony, especially at sunset.
- Venezia Nuova quarter. The Medici-planned canal district from 1629. Walkable bridges, warehouse-doors-on-water, and the Effetto Venezia summer festival turn it into Tuscany's Venice.
- Quattro Mori (Monumento dei Quattro Mori). Pietro Tacca's four bronze Moors (1626) chained to the base of Grand Duke Ferdinando I's statue facing the port. Livorno's civic icon.
How to get to Livorno
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Livorno is roughly 11 minutes away by road.
Our tip
Livorno is a true year-round port city, but the sweet spot is April–June and September–October. May and June have the warm Tyrrhenian light, the Effetto Venezia festival (last week of July) brings the canal quarter alive at night, and September is still beach-warm without the crowds. July and August get hot and the port traffic peaks. Effetto Venezia falls in July.
Campiglia Marittima
Why visit Campiglia Marittima
Campiglia Marittima sits at 231 meters on the last slopes of the Colline Metallifere above the Val di Cornia, eight kilometers inland from the Tyrrhenian coast and 60 kilometers southeast of Livorno. The Rocca occupies the highest point at 281 meters, a fortified semicircle whose 14th-century tower and town walls trace the medieval defensive line.
The territory has been mined since the Etruscans: copper, silver, lead and tin from the hills behind town, worked continuously until the last galleries closed in 1976. The Parco Archeominerario di San Silvestro, opened in 1996 on 450 hectares behind the town, centers on Rocca San Silvestro, a tenth and eleventh-century miners' village abandoned in the fourteenth century and excavated since 1984.
Visitors enter through restored galleries on a small electric train. Down on the plain the DOC Val di Cornia produces Sangiovese and Cabernet, and the thermal springs at Venturina, the frazione south of town, have flowed since Roman use as Aquae Populoniae.
What to see in Campiglia Marittima
- Rocca di Campiglia. Fortified semicircle at 281 meters with the 14th-century tower, walls and the Pieve di San Giovanni, the highest point of the town.
- Parco Archeominerario di San Silvestro. 450-hectare park behind town, opened 1996, with restored mining galleries, a small electric train, and the abandoned medieval miners' village of Rocca San Silvestro.
- Centro storico. Walled hilltop borgo of stone houses, with Piazza della Repubblica at its center, the medieval gates Porta a Mare and Porta Fiorentina still intact.
How to get to Campiglia Marittima
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Livorno is roughly 67 minutes away by road.
✷ We have written about Campiglia Marittima
“That is the thing the young man on the beach did not see, and the man who lives here cannot stop seeing. This is an industrial coast wearing a beach towel. Run it back far enough and the whole of it, the swamp and the steel and the slag and the white water, is one long story about iron, and the holiday is the costume the story put on after the work ran out.”
Read our piece on Campiglia Marittima →The Iron Coast | The Wrong Sea
Our tip
May through September is the season on the Val di Cornia: warm days, sea breezes that climb the hill, harvest of Sangiovese and Vermentino from late August. The beaches at San Vincenzo and Baratti are eight to fifteen kilometers away and pull the day-traffic. July and August are hot and busy on the coast; the borgo on the hill stays a few degrees cooler.
Montecatini-Terme
Why visit Montecatini-Terme
The spa town sits at 27 meters in the Valdinievole, forty kilometers west of Florence, at the foot of the hills that hold its older twin on the height above. That older settlement predates the town below it: the springs were exploited later, and the modern spa grew up on the flat ground beneath the hill village rather than around it.
The two remain connected by the red funicular, so a visitor moves between them in minutes rather than by road. Each of the four named waters treats a different complaint, drawn from the same eleven springs but separated by mineral content once they reach the surface.
The Thermal Park gathers the pavilions that were built to house this water cure, Liberty and neo-Renaissance architecture arranged as a single walled enclave rather than scattered through the town. In 2021 the UNESCO listing grouped the town with other spa towns built for the same purpose, Bath, Vichy, Baden-Baden and Karlovy Vary among them, recognition of a model of spa town that produced this particular layout: springs, park, pavilions, and a hill town kept deliberately apart from the cure below.
What to see in Montecatini-Terme
- Terme Tettuccio. The most famous of the thermal establishments, designed by Ugo Giovannozzi, with Liberty interiors built on the concept of the Roman baths.
- Parco Termale. Walled thermal park holding the major spa pavilions, laid out around the eleven springs that surface in the lower town.
- Funicolare di Montecatini. The two red cars carry passengers up the hill on rails laid in 1898, the ride lasting eight and a half minutes.
How to get to Montecatini-Terme
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Prato is roughly 31 minutes away by road.
✷ We have written about Montecatini-Terme
“I grew up around water that smells. In Budapest, you do not think of this as a flaw. The thermal water comes up out of the ground carrying its minerals with it, iron and sulfur, and whatever else the limestone has been holding for ten thousand years, and it announces itself before you see it.”
Read our piece on Montecatini-Terme →Montecatini Terme | The Bath Without People
Our tip
The thermal park works as a year-round destination, but the seasons feel different. April through June and September through October are the comfortable months: pavilions open, hotels staffed, walking the park or the funicular pleasant. July and August are hot in the Valdinievole and busy with package tourism.
San Giuliano Terme
Why visit San Giuliano Terme
San Giuliano Terme sits at 10 meters at the southern foot of Monte Pisano, ten kilometers north of Pisa. The name Aquae Pisanae was the ancient one for the springs that rise here, and the town's own name records the later dedication to San Giuliano rather than to Pisa, though the waters remain tied to the city below by the aqueduct that still carries them there.
The frazioni climb the slope of Monte Pisano itself, olive groves stepping up the lower ground while the plain beneath opens into the pine forests and dunes of the Parco di Migliarino-San Rossore-Massaciuccoli, so the comune runs in one line from mountain ridge to coastal flat with the spa town fixed at the hinge between them. What holds the place together is water moving downhill: from the spring, through the baths where the waters were taken, along the arches to Pisa, and out across the plain toward the sea.
What to see in San Giuliano Terme
- Bagni di Pisa. The restored complex occupies the eighteenth-century Lorena baths, its rooms the ones where Byron, Shelley and Leopardi lodged while taking the waters.
- Acquedotto Mediceo. The line of arches runs from the springs of Asciano down to Pisa, parallel to the modern road, still legible as a single continuous structure across the plain.
- Monte Pisano. The granite ridge above the town, with olive groves on the lower slopes and trails leading to Rocca della Verruca.
How to get to San Giuliano Terme
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Pisa is roughly 8 minutes away by road.
✷ We have written about San Giuliano Terme
“By the sea, cold hits differently. When that flat grey sky arrives, it means two things in our house: a big pot of bollito, and a thermal bath. The problem is finding one, the whole apparatus, multiple pools, the salt pool, sauna, steam room, mud, the entire game. For us, that means San Giuliano Terme, at the foot of Monte Pisano, and the Bagni di Pisa.”
Read our piece on San Giuliano Terme →Bagni di Pisa | The Tuesday Cure
Our tip
The thermal town runs year-round. Winter is the original spa season, with the warm pools welcome against the cold air off the Monte Pisano. April through June and September into October are the dry mild months for combining a spa stay with walks on Monte Pisano and the Parco di San Rossore. Sagra del Pesce falls in the season.
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