Benvenuti in Toscana! Now get washed at 40

The task at hand: lure Badfish, and everybody, to Tuscany.

Wherever you go around here, there is a direction board pointing to Terme Saturnia. This alone could tell you that it is something special, but not exactly how special. If you don’t mind a bit of sulphur in the air. Even though the latest visitor said: “What a nice smell!” For the curious: The chemical make-up of the water is sulphur, carbon, sulphate, bicarbonate-alkaline, earth, with the presence of hydrogen sulphide gas and carbon dioxide.

Murky water

He appeared all of a sudden from the depths.

I’ve been a few times but have never seen it as empty. The lady was in luck.

She was pleased too. 🙂

The images in this post, taken two weeks ago (except for my uncle), show a part of the Terme that is free to visit and bathe in. There is quite a huge free parking space and one very easy-going bar that has refreshments, toilets and showers for a fee. There is no other infrastructure.

What there is is one hot stream, at 37.5°C (99.5.°F), that after a waterfall forms little pools and flows away almost a river. There is also the official spa a bit further up the road but I have no experience with it, neither do any of my visitors.

First it’s a stream like this.

Then there is a waterfall.

A look from above. The waterfall is to the left of the house.

Pools.

Agreeable.

The river flowing away.

You can cross it here.

The experience is very relaxing, and right now especially eye-pleasing since the field opposite is lush green. And nobody chases dogs away either.

Since my uncle knows all this already, he is coming over right this minute.

And to round it up, a little funny story from the day of the shooting, April 27. It was about 6 pm. All day long I kept hearing compatriots, first in Siena then in the Abbey of St. Antimo and finally in Saturnia, which happened for the first time in three years. Slovenians are unobtrusive like that. Must have been an agency trip, even though I saw some bikers as well.

The girl in the images below comes swimming by.

Unaware that everybody (well, three of us + bestia) can understand her, she exclaims in the dialect of my hometown: “Don’t you know it, in Ljubljana there is 10 cm of snow and it keeps falling heavily! Na polno!”.

Which is how we first learnt of the latest “NATO weather manipulation”. If you believe it.

P.S.: I’ll tag Badfish so that Google will have even more hits to display, hihi.

Photo: a © signature mmm production

Na zdravje, Alenka!

My friend, it feels like you were just here. Maybe because you were. Let’s see what all we did. (Story in the captions.)

The wall is okay. /Roma/

But I hear you prefer benches…/Pitigliano/

It’s better in two though. /Sovana/

Or in three. /Porto Santo Stefano/

You make a lovely family. /Orbetello/

Just your wedding planner is a bit out of shape… 😀 /Civitella Maritima/

…and sometimes confuses bridges. /NOT the way to Sovana/

But it was still a lovely walk.

It made us hungry and studying was in order. /Sovana/

Wow effect. /Pitigliano/

Matching colour scheme. /Porto Ercole/

Wow effect was on this side. /Capalbio/

By Lake Burano

We call it Spanish elder, they call it lilac.

The same field where I lied down and got zero poppies. /Capalbio scalo/

Matching colour scheme II.

Bodyguard.

Deserved rest. /Terme Saturnia/

But not for long: you are putting your shoes back on…

…and it’s action time again. /Capalbio beach/

Photo: a © signature mmm production

And a special thank you to Jože for this photo from Roma. We just had to sit down a little again. 😀

Dear Alenka, thank you so much for your visit and good times. Today is your birthday and no matter what have a cin cin in my name too. I hope to see you back here soon.

WPC: Our ooops moments

Over here, ooops moments are rich and varied. Let’s investigate a few.

First there is weird camera stuff: two images that the camera decided to take by itself right here from the desk, plus two that I think are called double exposure (hm… yes?). Or maybe it’s parallel universes? In any case, I like it.

Ooops can also be in the action itself: a flood in Terme Saturnia, followed by a hurricane in our back yard, followed by dry Fontana di Trevi under construction, followed by a lovely bookcase, just a bit high up (yes, ours!), followed by what amore calls “the Italian fantasy”, and last but not least, not really a welcome in Porto Ercole.

Here are a few animal ooopses: a sheep that lost its footing, the gecko that to me is in itself one big ooops, a sea (food) predator, and a mysterious cage of a dead parrot in Porto Santo Stefano.

The following happened when our olive tree called Olgo (because it’s male) got refreshed and we burnt the cut-off branches in our fireplace. Never put the wooden crate in an indoor situation on fire like that, in case you didn’t know. It BURNS. Consequence: the lovely green mirror you see above the mantel cracked from side to side. (It would anyway, crate or no crate, since the chimney behind it was so hot.)

My favourite ooops moments involve funny poses: mom as Kenny, mom as a peperoncino walrus, bestia as a symbol of joy, silly puppy face and silly photographer stand (but with nice imagery of Val d’Orcia).

This is better.

Photo: MM & last two MeMa (that’s you, mom!)

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: Oops!

Happy seventyeen, dad!

Buon anno, e un buon compleanno! In Orbetello. Photo: MM

Today my father celebrates big. I will join the celebrations shortly but for now I’m sending greetings and warm wishes in the shape of selected images taken by you:

Blonde bundle of joy, and this is exactly how I still feel sometimes.

Possibly my favourite photo ever. With your father.

By Burano Lake

In Bagno Vignoni

Bežigrad Challenge

With my new branco in Terme Saturnia

Paparazzo, Mille miglia race

In Val d’Orcia

In Giardino dei tarocchi (featured photo above also from here)

Giardino dei tarocchi selfie

Photo: BM

Portrait of a young photographer

Young writer

Your Maribor. Photo: BM

Your city. It will be forever.

It used to be so far. Traffic jams, fog, snow, heat – things needed to be endured.

And then finally Maribor, and most often sunny. Main square. Those four floors – sometimes it seemed even higher, depending on form.

View of green Pohorje. The scent of the kitchen. Cheerful baca.

This is your courtyard. High school. Basketball court. Drava river. “Don’t let NATO see your bridges,” Balašević said during his concert on the raft.

Impressions from my last visit? Pretty, quiet, friendly. Romantic, yet rainy on this occasion. Just where there used to be the marketplace, little chicks can no longer be bought.

And then, in Piran, the exact same number of stairs?

In Piran. Photo: MM

You always love to surprise and please.

The age is right for me to like Shakin’ Stevens. He is a regular in Bravo. His posters look down from the wall.

When you go abroad once again, you return with cassettes. A bunch of them. I look at them in awe. Names I have never heard before. And then one that I know. Stevens! Shaky! But no. The name on the tape is Cat Stevens. Disappointment lasts several years until I realise that Cat is a hundred times better.

In the same bunch of tapes there is also one of Buddy Miles, Jimi Hendrix drummer.

Many years later I will be at his concert in Vienna. The name will ring a bell from somewhere.

Father, not really son, but the year is right (1970). Tanti auguri e grazie per tutto!

≈ Manja Maksimovič ≈

Edit: P.S.: By going away he means visit me in Tuscany.

WPC: Forces of Nature – Terme Saturnia

Terme Saturnia is the main tourist attraction around these parts. Everywhere you might be, a marker points to its general direction. This makes you expect something a bit special, but not quite like it is when you get there. It is free, warm, beneficial (but of course), wild and very pretty. Forces of nature at work and they let them be. And there is a fancy, organised spa with a golf course next to it. But of course.

If you approach from the north, first you see a lazy stream. It looks very non-eventful, if a bit murky and milky.

I’ll jump!

Then the water, very warm and only slightly smelly, suddenly falls. For some reason this attracts a large number of mammals. 🙂

Sometimes it’s March and green, sometimes it’s July and brown but fruitful.

Sometimes it’s very crowded, sometimes you can find a nice vacant spot with your name on it.

If you cross the stream and reach the opposite bank, you can have a private little beach and reach the waterfall. It varies in strength and I’d be careful. My experience was like a bunch of horses suddenly decided to start kicking me, underwater.

Mammals vary. 🙂 The translucence of water varies too, I think that after a rainfall it gets murkier.

Then you return from the bank opposite, cross the stream lower down, have the last little soak and wave it goodbye.

Because the next time you arrive, everything can be very different. This view greeted us late November last year. The forces of nature invaded the pool in the official spa as well.

This year we haven’t been yet, but I’ve read that all is well again. Bienvenuti!

Photo: MM

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Forces of Nature.”

WPC: Afloat = awake

Awake.
Shake dreams from your hair.
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day.
The day’s divinity, first thing you see.

—Jim Morrison, “The Ghost Song”

Piran, Slovenia

Orbetello lagoon

Terme Saturnia normally

Terme Saturnia after a flood

Photo: MM

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “Afloat.”

A faithful heart and a working hand

Zedd continues to prove that he does not have only a faithful heart and a working hand (zvesto srce in delovno ročico, courtesy of France Prešeren) but also a good eye, a good zoom and a good guide (hihi).

Magic sea

Not quite Buddha

Checking out the installation by Zedd

Free

Hey man

Orbetello

Terme Saturnia

Pitigliano

Pitigliano

Monster tree

Bolsena Lake

Mojito bar, Bolsena Lake

Capodimonte

Photo: Zedd