Hot Springs in Tuscany: What Each One Costs, and the Only One You Can Reach by Train

Search for hot springs in Tuscany and Google returns fifteen results of which exactly one is a guide. The rest are Tripadvisor listings, two Rick Steves forum threads, two Facebook posts, two Instagram reels, a Reddit thread, a YouTube video and, in tenth place, a page of stock photography.

So the basic questions are unanswered in public. What does each one cost. Which are free. Whether you can get to any of them without renting a car. We went and measured the last one ourselves, and it turned out to be the whole story.

They are not one place, and nobody says so

Every list, including Google’s own AI summary, presents the same four or five names as a set: Saturnia, Bagni San Filippo, Bagno Vignoni, Petriolo, Terme di Saturnia. Read as a list, they look like stops on a route.

They are not. Saturnia is in the Maremma, down in the south-west near the coast. Bagni San Filippo and Bagno Vignoni are in the Val d’Orcia, in the south-east. Montecatini and Monsummano are north-west of Florence, in an entirely different direction. The resort itself puts Saturnia at about three hours from Florence by car, and that is the operator being honest on its own directions page.

That matters more than it sounds, because it turns one decision into three. You are not choosing a hot spring. You are choosing a corner of Tuscany and then taking what it has.

Every train from Florence, measured

This is the part we could check properly, so we did: a full-day sweep of Trenitalia’s own booking system for each gateway station, for Wednesday 18 November 2026.

Three things fall out of that table, and all three are the opposite of what the lists imply.

Saturnia, Bagno Vignoni and Bagni San Filippo are not in the system at all. Not “no direct service”. Type the names into Trenitalia’s station search and you get zero results, the same way you would for a street name. The nearest usable station to Saturnia is Grosseto, which is still about 55 kilometres away and has three direct trains a day.

Montecatini Terme has 37 direct trains a day at a flat 6.60 euros, the fastest doing it in 47 minutes, and it has a second station, Montecatini Centro, with 25 more. That is the same fare and roughly the same journey as San Miniato. It is the only thermal destination in Tuscany that behaves like a day trip rather than an expedition.

And the search box will lie to you twice. Type “Chiusi” and the first result is Chiusi della Verna, a village in the Casentino with no connection to the spa town; the one you want is Chiusi-Chianciano Terme. Type “Montecatini” and you get three, one of which is Montecatini Val di Cecina, about a hundred kilometres away. We hit the same class of trap when we counted the stations in Florence itself, and it costs people real money.

The free pools, and what free leaves out

Two of the famous sites genuinely cost nothing to enter, and we are only willing to say that firmly about one of them.

The Cascate del Mulino are free, open air, and run at a constant 37 degrees. That comes from Visit Tuscany, the regional tourist board, which is also the source Google’s own AI summary cites for the claim. There is no ticket office. There is also no closing time, which is the real reason people recommend arriving early.

Bagni San Filippo is the other one, and its draw is the Balena Bianca, a white calcareous mass in the woods with pale blue pools under it. Every source we read says the Fosso Bianco path is free to walk. We have not confirmed that from an official listing, so we are telling you where the claim comes from rather than asserting it.

Bagno Vignoni is the one to be careful about, because it is the most photographed and the least swimmable. The famous medieval basin in the middle of the village is not a bathing pool and you cannot get in it. Google’s summary says the same. Go for the square and the Parco dei Mulini below it, not for a soak.

What free does not cover, in any of the three, is parking. We could not find an official published rate for the car parks at either Saturnia or Bagni San Filippo, and rather than repeat the figures that circulate we are telling you to budget for it and check on the day.

What the spas charge, and the white bathrobe rule

Here is every price we could read from the people who actually charge it, on 1 October 2026.

The useful part is the gap. At Saturnia you can sit in the same spring water for nothing, for 30 euros or for 90, within a few minutes of each other. The 90 euro Club buys access to the spring itself, indoor relaxation rooms and the kit. The 30 euro ticket buys four outdoor pools and a sauna.

And then there is the rule that catches people at the door. The 30 euro admission does not include a towel or a bathrobe, and the ones you bring must be white. That is the operator’s own published dress code, not folklore. Turn up with a navy beach towel and you are renting a Wellness Kit at reception on top of what you have already paid. If you are going in the cheap ticket, pack white.

Two more from the same page, both easy to trip over. From 1 November to 31 March the pools close at 17:00 rather than 19:00, which in practice removes an afternoon from a winter visit. And you cannot bring your own food or drink in, so the picnic plan does not work.

Grotta Giusti, at Monsummano Terme, will not tell you its day rate online. This is the one with the trains, so it is the one we most wanted a number for. Its site publishes pool hours, a phone number and a price list from 2020 hosted on Issuu. We are not quoting a six-year-old PDF as a current price. You have to ring.

Which one to actually go to

Our honest answer depends entirely on whether you have a car, and it is not the answer the lists give.

• No car, based in Florence, one day: Montecatini Terme. It is 6.60 euros and 47 minutes, it runs 37 times a day so you cannot miss the last one, and the town is built for arriving by train. It is not a wild pool in a field and you should not go expecting one.
• No car, and you specifically want the natural pools: be honest with yourself about the last leg. Chiusi-Chianciano Terme has 16 direct trains and still leaves you roughly thirty kilometres from Bagni San Filippo. That is a taxi at both ends, and we have not priced it.
• With a car, and Saturnia is the point: do not do it as a day trip from Florence. Three hours each way, by the resort’s own reckoning, for a soak. It works as a stop on the way south towards Rome, or as an overnight.
• Going in winter: this is the right instinct and the data agrees. Searches for Saturnia peak in January. Just remember the paid pools shut at 17:00 from November.

We looked for a tour that would solve the transport problem and there is no Saturnia day trip from Florence to recommend, because there is not one. Everything on sale leaves from Rome or from the cruise port at Civitavecchia, at 350 to 507 euros. A search asking specifically for thermal experiences departing Florence comes back with Cinque Terre and Chianti wine tours. That is the clearest possible signal that the drive is too long, and it is why this page has nothing to sell you. The recommendation is a 6.60 euro train ticket, and we earn nothing from it.

If what you actually want is a day out of Florence that does work, our guides to day trips and what you can reach without a car start from the same train data.

What we have not checked

• We have not been to any of these. Everything above is the operators’ published terms, the regional board, and our own train measurements. Nothing here is a report of what the water feels like.
• Parking costs at Cascate del Mulino and Bagni San Filippo. Figures circulate; we found no official listing and will not repeat them.
• Grotta Giusti’s day rate, which it does not publish.
• The last mile from Chiusi-Chianciano, Grosseto or Buonconvento to the springs: whether a bus runs, what a taxi costs, whether it is bookable.
• That Bagni San Filippo and the Bagno Vignoni park are free, and that bathing is prohibited in the Bagno Vignoni square. Widely reported, not confirmed by us from an official source.
• Petriolo, which appears on every list and which we have left out rather than describe from other people’s pages.

Questions