Day 51 Siena Hot Springs

Since you all know just how hard my life the past 2 months has been, I am sure you can all agree when I say that I deserved a relaxing day at the natural hot Springs in Siena.... ;) Friday morning, Ana, Ariana, Bree and I met up at Santa Maria Novella Station and got on a bus to go try out the hot springs in Siena. Since the weather is about to get pretty chilly, we decided we might as well take advantage of the last few weeks of sun. The ride to the hot springs was about an hour and a half. When we got there, it was a beautiful sunny day but super windy. The hot springs, which was more like a spa, offered massages, mud bathes, facials, and manicures for extra, but I was just satisfied with being able to use the bathes all day. Unfortunately, on the bus, our tour leader warned us that since the hot springs are natural wells, there was a high chance that the place would smell like sulfur.. and that it did. Once inside the locker room, the smell was very concentrated. So, not ideal, but I was willing to but up with it for the time being. So we changed and made our way out to the pools. I really did not realize just how cold it would be until we stepped out in our bikinis and felt the cold wind. Getting out of the pools was going to be fun! We walked over to the first pool only to reach down and feel the temperature... lukewarm at best. So we ventured over to another pool.. A little better but not by much. Now I am freezing, and anything beyond cold sounded like a good option. So we got into this pool. Once inside we started talking to some other people there about the other pools and everyone agreed that this was the hottest.. The hot springs just turned into the lukewarm springs. I can't say it wasn't relaxing.. just not what you would expect from a place who boasts naturally "hot" water. They also never mentioned the sulfuric-rotten eggesque smell coming from all around you, but alas... We decided to relocate to the inside pool where the smell was worse, but at least it was shelter from the wind. Basically, we hung out in there for the rest of the day, sheltered from the cold but not exactly doing what we had planned. Bree paid for a mud bath, so for an hour she was gone doing that. Around 5, we got back on the bus and headed home. Since we were planning on going to Venice in the morning, I was just going to spend the night at their apartment since our train to Venice was at 4:30 a.m. the next morning. The lukewarm springs were beautiful in person, but only by sight. I can't say I would recommend them to a fellow traveler but I am glad that I had the experience. Not many people can say they lukewarm springed in Siena, Italy, can they?