Abbadia San Salvatore

Abbey of Sant'Antimo

Albarese

Acquapendente


anghiari

Archipelago Toscano


Arcidosso


Arezzo


Asciano


Badia di Coltibuono


Bagni San Filippo

Bagno Vignoni

Barberino Val d'Elsa

Beaches

Bolsena Lake


Bomarzo

Brunello di Montalcino

Buonconvento

Campagnatico


Capalbio


Castel del Piano


Castelfiorentino

Castell'Azzara

Castellina in Chianti


Castelmuzio


Castelnuovo Bererdenga


Castiglioncello Bandini


Castiglione della Pescaia


Castiglione d'Orcia


Castiglion Fiorentino


Celleno


Certaldo


Chinaciano Terme


Chianti


Chiusi


Cinigiano


Città di Castello

CivitÀ di Bagnoregio


Colle Val d'Elsa


Cortona


Crete Senesi


Diaccia Botrona

Isola d'Elba

Firenze


Follonica


Gaiole in Chianti


Gavorrano

Gerfalco


Greve in Chianti


Grosseto


Lago Trasimeno


La Foce


Manciano


Maremma


Massa Marittima


Montagnola Senese


Montalcino


Monte Amiata


Monte Argentario

montecalvello

Montefalco


Montemassi


Montemerano


Monte Oliveto Maggiore


Montepulciano


Monteriggioni


Monticchiello


Monticiano


Orbetello


Orvieto


Paganico


Parco Naturale della Maremma


Perugia


Piancastagnaio


Pienza


Pisa


Pitigliano

Prato

Radda in Chianti


Roccalbegna


Roccastrada


San Bruzio


San Casciano dei Bagni


San Galgano


San Gimignano


San Giovanni d'Asso


San Quirico d'Orcia


Sansepolcro


Santa Fiora


Sant'Antimo


Sarteano


Saturnia


Scansano


Scarlino


Seggiano


Siena


Sinalunga


Sorano


Sovana


Sovicille

Talamone

Tarquinia


Tavernelle Val di Pesa


Torrita di Siena


Trequanda


Tuscania


Umbria


Val d'Elsa


Val di Merse


Val d'Orcia


Valle d'Ombrone


Vetulonia


Viterbo

Volterra




 
Walking in Tuscany
             
 
Bagno Vignoni

Bagno Vignoni


album Surroundings
       
   


Bagno Vignoni


   
   
Bagno Vignoni, the thermal station that has been known since Medieval times for its celebrated piazza d’acqua. On the slope that leads towards the river, you’ll find the Parco dei Mulini — interesting park that bears witness to plumbing constructions and techniques that were invented in medieval times.
   
   

Bagno Vignoni is a small spa of medieval origin, although it was already know in Roman times. Bagno Vignoni sits on a hill above the    Val d'Orcia just south of San Quirico. The fascinating tiny village is clustered around a large pool closed on three sides by the town walls, whith water that flows at 52°. The pool essentially fills the square, surrounded by a 1.5 metre-high wall on three sides. All around are buildings designed by Bernardo Rossellino in honour of Pope Pius II, while on the fourth side is the archway from which St. Catherine of Siena admired the view. This place also fascinated Lorenzo il Magnifico of the Medici family, who spent part of 1490 here. The old Francigena road passes near the village, and as the diary written in 1581 by Michel de Montagne confirms, pilgrims and travellers heading toward Rome frequently stopped in Bagno Vignoni to find comfort in its hot springs.
In 1677 the Gran Duke Cosimo III enfeoffed St. Quirico d’Orcia to Cardinal Flavio Chigi, together with the lilttle villages of Vignoni and Bagno Vignoni; the thermal establishment, together with three mills, eight houses, a tavern and a certain amount of land thus passed into the hands of the Chigi family and their discendents to whom a part still remains in property.
Nowadays Bagno Vignoni is well-known and appreciated the world over as an esteemed thermal locality situated in the heart of the Val d’Orcia.


Parco dei Mulini


Bagno Vignoni, Parco dei Mulini, caves and thermal bath and hot springs in Bagno Vignoni, San Quirico d'Orcia

Bagno Vignoni, Parco dei Mulini, caves and thermal bath and hot springs in Bagno Vignoni, San Quirico d'Orcia

 

The water of Bagno Vignoni was analized and described by the naturalist Giorgio Santi, but its usefulness was not limited – as noted by Emanuele Repetti – to its therapeutic effects alone; it served, in fact, to put "in motion 5 or 6 mills built one above another inside the travertine caves."
Today, thanks to rearrangement of the area carried out by the Commune and the ensuing inauguration of the Park of the Mills, visitors can admire some of the buildings mentioned by Repetti, which remained abandoned up to the middle of the 1950s. The activity of milling was, in fact, along with that of the baths, one of Bagno Vignoni's major resources.

Behind Bagno Vignoni, immersed and hidden in the green of the hill there is the small village borgo Vignoni Alto in a position that dominates the entire Val d' Orcia and the Monte Amiata.


Photo album Van d'Orcia

Bagno Vignoni   La vasca termale e il Palazzo Rossellino nella piazza di Bagno Vignoni   Vignoni Alto

Bagno Vignoni, Piazza dei Sorgenti

 

  La vasca termale e il Palazzo Rossellino nella piazza di Bagno Vignoni

 

  Vignoni Alto
Bagni Vignone (Val d'Orcia)   VignoniBagnoVignoniPanoramaVignoniAlto1   VignoniAltoBagnoVignoniSanBiagio3

Bagno Vignoni

 

 

Vignoni Alto

 

 

Chiesa di San Biagio a Vignoni Alto

 

Bagno Vignoni - Installazione artistica di Carlo Pizzichini   Pic-VF4-IT35 San Quirico-Radicofani 06 (Bagno Vignoni)   Bagno Vignoni, Parco dei Mulini

Bagno Vignoni, Piazza delle Sorgenti, con installazione artistica di Carlo Pizzichini

 

  Bagno Vignoni, chiesa di
San Giovanni Battist
 

Bagno Vignoni, Parco dei Mulini

 

The vicinity of the bath to the Via Francigena, the pilgrims' route to Rome, persuaded the less-hurried travellers to make the acquaintance of the spa waters. La Via Francigena was the road, or better said, the bunch of roads that led to Rome from northern Europe. In Tuscany it follows the Cassia way touching San Gimignano, Siena, then San Quirico and Radicofani, travelling along the Val d'Orcia.

Walking in Tuscany | Via Francigena


Andrei Tarkovsky shot Nostalghia in Tuscany in 1983. There were two sets he used for his film, Bagno di Vignoni and the Abbadia di San Galgano. Both sets played a very important role in the film, Bagno Vignoni serving as the culmination scene, San Galgano being the backdrop of a marvellous dream sequence staging a small Russican cottage from his childhood in a medieval Tuscan Abbey.

Films set in Tuscany | Nostalghia (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1983)



Watch Bagno Vignoni in Tarkovsky's film Nostalghia

 

 
Watch the abbeySan Galgano in the final scene of Tarkovsky's film Nostalghia
 


[1] [Source image: www.quotazero.com]
[2] Source: Bagno Vignoni Baths and Park of the Mills | www.brunelleschi.imss.

 

Free natural hot springs in Tuscany


Bagno Vignoni
Bagno Vignoni, Parco dei Mulini [1]

 

For a free bath, try the Parco dei Mulini, a hundred meters or so downhill. The better choice is Bagno San Filippo, only half an hour away from Bagno Vignoni. In the heart of the Val d’Orcia, San Filippo is characterized by suggestive calcareous sediments made by the hot sulphurous water.
Bagno San Filippo has a similar past: the waters of San Filippo were known by Romans, became famous in Middle Ages, treated famous people like Lorenzo il Magnifico and other princes of the Medici family.

The Thermal springs in Bagni San Filippo have created a magical landscape of white limestone formations, waterfalls and small pools of hot water. In the middle of a lush green wood, reached by a short walk. Following a picturesque walking path immersed in the green woods, and accompanied by the sound of the water, you come to the Balena Blanca (White Whale) waterfall.

Access to the entire area of the Fosso Blanco is free of charge.
One can reach Bgni San Filippo on the SP61, in the direction of Abbadia San Salvatore.

Bagno San Filippo was the location in which parts of Alice Rohrwacher's 2014 film Le Meraviglie were shot.

Films set in Tuscany | Le Meraviglie (Alice Rohrwachter, 2014)

 

 
The waterfall named for he resemblance of the mouth of a whale, is the most impressive limestone formation of the Fosso Blanco.
 
   
 

Mappa Val d'Orcia | Ingrandire mappa

 





Bagno Vignoni, an immersion in the Val d'Orcia



   

POINT OF DEPARTURE AND ARRIVAL: Bagno Vignoni (Tourist Office at the entrance of the village), parking available. (Circular path).
LENGTH: about 12 Km.
DURATION: 4 hours.

The route starts from the tourist office located at the entrance of Bagno Vignoni. Take the paved road in the direction indicated by the sign of farmhouses. The asphalt road leads straight into the dirt and get to Vignoni Alto after about 40 minutes of ascent through olive groves and vineyards. (...)

Trekking sul Monte Amiata | Da Bagno Vignoni, un'immersione nella Val d'Orcia



 



Walking in the Val d'Orcia
[1]

From San Quirico d'Orcia to Bagno Vignoni


Bagno Vignoni - La Foce


Bagno Vignoni - Bagno Vignoni


Castiglione d'Orcia - Castiglione d'Orcia



Walking in the Val d'Orcia [2]



 

Borgo dell'Eremo
and Chiesa di San Marcello

Vivo d'Orcia - Vivo d'Orcia


Castelnuovo dell'Abate - Vivo d'Orcia

The Castle of Vivo d'Orcia lies in the widespread Orcia valley in southern Tuscany, 35 km north of Podere Santa Pia. The area surrounding Montalcino has been famed for centuries by artists and poets for its beautiful yet peaceful landscapes, comprising of soft rolling valleys and lightly peppered with olive groves and vineyards of superior quality.
Vivo d'Orcia is a splendid outlying district of Castiglion d'Orcia, set in a valley outside time. At the foot of the castle, the river Vivo runs whose sources rise in the locality of Ermicciolo. Starting in the middle ages flour-mills, paper-mills and ironworks were built along the torrent and, in the 1920’s, one of the first hydroelectric power stations. Traces of these old buildings, covered with climbing plants, may still be seen here in one of the area’s most beautiful and evocative landscapes.

Maps and further descriptions are available in Podere Sante Pia.



 
     

Walk around Pienza
Montepulciano - Pienza | 11 km, 3 hours


   

Walking in Tuscany | San Quirico d'Orcia, Bagni Vignoni, Castiglione d'Orcia, Rocca d'Orcia, Montalcino, La Foce

Walking in Tuscany | Rocca d'Orcia, Castelnuovo dell'Abate - Vivo d'Orcia


Historic Centre of the City of Pienza | whc.unesco.org

Trekking Val d'Orcia

Villa La Foce Estate | La Foce - 61, Strada della Vittoria -53042 Chianciano Terme - Siena | www.lafoce.com

Tuscany | The Val d'Orcia



In the heart of the evocative Tuscany country, hidden away from mass-tourism, one can discover a piece of Italy which remains largely unchanged both nature and lifestyle-wise. The peacefulness of the countryside, the various unique villages and the friendly atmosphere will no doubt pleasantly surprise you.

Hiden secrets in southern Tuscany | Podere Santa Pia



Cappella della Madonna di Vitaleta
Podere Santa Pia
 
Podere Santa Pia
 
San Quirico d'Orcia, Cappella della Madonna di Vitaleta



Pienza
Banfi, Castello di Poggio alle Mura,
Rocca d'Orcia
Pienza