Finally, a reasonable hour to be waking up, 6:00. Our train left from the Trastevere Station at 7:52. We took the tram there, saving time and energy. The latter would prove to be beneficial, later in the day.
Anthony has been on a strange sleeping schedule lately. No one has been able to understand it completely. He went to bed two nights before at 4 or 5 in the morning, woke up yesterday at 7 in the evening, and stayed up all night the night before our trip. He was a little loopy.
The train was much less luxurious than we were used to. It's an old regional train, covered in graffiti with a good number of stops between Rome and Viterbo.
The train went alongside a steep hill by a beautiful lake enclosed by tall, bluish mountains. It looked very peaceful.
After a couple of hours, we arrived at the Porta Romana station on the south side of Viterbo.
Adam and I had originally planned this trip a month ago during the snowpocalypse. We were Google-ing around the inter-web, searching for info on Viterbo and discovered that it was home to a wealth of natural hot springs. These hot springs were made famous when the poet Dante mentioned them in the Inferno. The plan was to sit in these hot springs and watch the snow fall around us. In the end, we couldn't go because the Italians were not responding to the snow very well, and public transportation shut down completely. In retrospect, that was a very good thing.
Italians are not very grateful in providing travelers with free maps, so we improvised.
We walked along the eleventh century walls, through the gateway, and into the historic center. It looked just like you'd imagined a mid-eval town to look. Grey, old, shabby stone work, with winding roadways and narrow alleys. But then, to contrast it all, we came across an apartment balcony with a pro-communist banner and a flag boasting the hammer and sickle. Interesting.
The town was dead quiet. Small towns in Italy take their Sabbath Days very seriously. This town specifically has strong ties to the Catholic Church. It was the fallback residence for the popes when they were having difficulty maintaining control in Rome around the twelfth century.
In the thirteenth century, while the cardinals were failing for three years to elect a new pope, the citizens of Viterbo took action and locked the cardinals in the Gothic Palazzo. They removed the roof and let them bake in the sun and starve until a new pope was elected. This turned out to be Pope Gregory the Tenth.
Maybe the United States could utilize this tactic on the senate house from time to time.
We didn't really have much of a direction in mind. The ultimate goal was the hot springs, but that was going to be quite the trek. We wanted to familiarize ourselves with the town first.
Some Italian photographer told us to check out the community hall. So, we did.
Imagine if small town politics was taken seriously. Very seriously. This is what you'd get.
Their community hall, which serves no more than 65 thousand residents, rivals many of the state assembly halls back home.
Afterwards, we hit up a supermarket. With the little Italian we know yet solid understanding of hand gestures, we were able to order a loaf of bread, an eighth a wheel of cheese, a dozen slices of salami and, of course, wine.
Off to the hot springs!
The hot springs lie 3 kilometers west of the city walls. I'm afraid two of our fellow travelers were not well informed of the adventures ahead of them.
Once outside the city walls, the world completely changed. No more side walks, no more tightly packed buildings. Instead it was all replaced with grass, trees, agriculture, and villas. One thing remained unchanged, however, the crazy Italian driving.
Looking like true backpackers, we began the 45 minute walk to the hot springs along side a semi-busy highway in the country-side.
(Credit: Anthony Martinez)
Adam explained to us later that the number-one killer of tourists in Italy is being hit by vehicles. Glad to have stayed out of that statistic.
Besides the ever-present danger of getting smashed into by an automobile, the walk was very relaxing. Hiking in the Italian country-side was beautiful. The air seemed fresher and the sky was clearer. The villas were quaint and inviting. It was a wonderful experience.
After about 30 minutes, I was convinced that these springs didn't actually exist. It seemed ridiculous to be walking on the side of a highway, chasing something which we only really interpreted the existence of off of a good Google translate and a blurry Google satellite image.
I had put quite a bit of faith into Google, and they had put quite a bit of faith into me.
Alas, we arrived at the first hot spring. Exactly like Google maps had imaged for me (Google maps; convenient, but a little creepy).
The main hot spring was fenced off because the water was too hot. The other pools were too far from the center pool to maintain a good amount of heat. Nobody was swimming here. In any case, I was very proud of myself.
The next springs down the road and across from the military base were supposedly the popular ones. Sure enough, it was paradise, baby!
I couldn't believe it. The smell of sulfur and the white, perfectly-shaped pools of hot water with Italians in them seemed to be straight out of a dream. Was it truly possible that, in the middle of the Italian country-side with mountains in the background, there was this glorious, free, natural bathing complex?
Yes, it was!
The way the sulfur formed the baths was strikingly perfect. It looks man-made, but it's completely natural. The pools layer themselves perfectly from the source, and each one has a descending temperature level. The water is pure, from the ground and infused with sulfur. Over time, this glistens the pools with a beautiful, smooth, white layer of sulfuric buildup. It's also good for exfoliation of the skin.
We wandered around a little to see the whole complex. Behind the source pool was a man-made aqueduct leading to another pool on the far end. Time has allowed the sulfuric buildup to create a very neat effect.
It was time to jump in. Everything I could have ever hoped for and more!
This is what they try, and fail, to make the hot tubs at the Wisconsin Dells look like.
It was the most relaxing experience I've had in a long time. I could have stayed there for days, years even.
We were the only Americans there. This seemed like the destination for Italian day trippers. What a great Sunday family trip? In one corner, there was a middle-aged Italian women, orange-tanned, sucking down a cigarette, who appeared to have been bathing in that exact spot since January.
After moving up to the hotter pools, melting and becoming one with the world, it was time for our picnic, mid-eval style. Bread, wine, salami, and cheese. Best picnic ever!
One last soak and it was time to head home. We had spent close to 4 hours in the pools. The sulfur residue made my hair look a little spastic. On the way, we ran across a horse who went to town on the apple we offered him/her.
(Credit: Adam Weidman)
The walk back was surreal. I felt cleansed of all impurity. I felt so comfortable with the world. Walking in the middle of an Italian country road wasn't a big deal anymore. The world was my oyster.
(Credit: Anthony Martinez)
We got back to Viterbo just in time for the sunset. The gateway led us into a park with a very unique statue in the middle depicting a giant buried in the valley. He had a funny face and I like making funny faces, so we got along just fine.
(Credit: Adam Weidman)
We climbed to the base of the Duomo which rested on the south-facing cliff to the valley. The way it was built in stone made it look like a semi-artificial extension of the cliff. At the top, we epically gazed out at the sun which appeared to be setting in the hot springs, from which we came, far off in the country side.
We checked out the Duomo and headed for the train station. I stopped in a bar and got a cafe corretto. Literally, corrected coffee, it's a shot of espresso with a shot of grappa.
The train station, like the rest of Viterbo, was dead quiet. The ticket booth was closed and the ticket machine was out of order. Like true Italians, we rode back to Rome without paying for the public transportation.
We got back late in the evening. Anthony was a zombie and needed to go to bed before he started nawing on brains. Adam and I grabbed some well-deserved gelato. I sat around for a little while. Soon, I went to bed and feel into a deep sleep. I woke up the next morning feeling refreshed, wondering if yesterday was a dream.
