🇮🇹 Luxury Tuscany Spa Hotels: Grotta Giusti & Bagni di Pisa
- Martin Hesp
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
A Taste of Elegant Tuscany
The composer Giuseppe Verdi once said: “You may have the universe if I may have Italy…”
Which is relevant to what follows as Verdi used to stay at one of the two remarkable hotels in Tuscany which are the focus of this feature.
🏨 Two Iconic Tuscan Spa Hotels
They know a lot of things about quality and class, those Italians - and Verdi was no exception. Tuscany is perhaps the standard-bearer for this rule. Just about everywhere you look in this province you will see beautiful, classical, views. Just about everywhere you eat you will be treated to wonderful food. And just about everywhere you stay there’ll be something exceptional about your surroundings.
That is what I was thinking on my dual-hotel trip to Tuscany recently - a long-weekend which was full of novelty and surprises as well as the high quality I was expecting. And I emphasise the long-weekend factor because Pisa Airport is just a two hour flight on one of the regular easyJet services from Bristol, so easily do-able by anyone living in the West Country.
🏛️ Italian Hospitality Collection: A Classic Experience
Anyway, my friends in the travel public relations world know that I have a weakness for the kind of Bel Epoque style hotels which hark back to times that were somehow more elegant, classy and altogether more stylish than the blander, ubiquitous, offerings presented by many of the big international hostility groups today.
Which is why they introduced me to the folks who run the Italian Hospitality Collection - a world-class hotel, resort and spa brand that provides… “rich, authentic experiences for travellers who seek to feel loved, cherished and indulged in a genuine Italian lifestyle.”
🌿 Grotta Giusti: Tuscany’s Hidden Thermal Wonder
That is what it says on the side of the very chic and classy tin, and also what you get inside. Here is what my invitation had to stay about the first of the two Tuscan hotels I visited…
“With a decadent history as the former home of famed poet Giuseppe Giusti, Grotta Giusti is now a prestigious hotel that has maintained its historical air and natural charm with a backdrop of antique furnishings and paintings. It offers lavish rooms with marble bathrooms, a large outdoor thermal swimming pool and a private underground thermal cave and lake, where guests can scuba dive or indulge in a spot of floating therapy.”
Apart from being elegant and lovely to look at, it was one of the most remarkable hotels I’ve ever stayed in. No wonder Giuseppe Verdi used to stay here.
♨️ Thermal Spa Culture in Tuscany
Basically, both the Grotta Guisti and its sister hotel - the palatial Bagni di Pisa, 40 miles away - evolved over time because of their twin locations, which happen to be right on top of a major geological fault that crosses Italy. What this means is that hot water warmed by the Earth’s core bubbles close to the surface - and that this has been utilised for all manner of curative and cleansing purposes since Roman senators once relaxed hereabout 2000 years ago.
Hot water spas play a much bigger part in Italian culture than they do here - indeed both hotels feature a new wellness programme called Equilibrium, developed by top doctors who incorporate the various spa therapies to help reduce inflammation in the body. We haven’t time here to go into this in detail, but I had a chat with Equilibrium’s founder, a Dr Fortunati, and he told me how the programme focuses on the relationship between the mind and the nervous, endocrine and immune systems.
🚶♂️ Exploring the Tuscan Countryside
It all seemed to make sense, but I was only around for a weekend so wanted to simply soak up the lovely feeling of being in Tuscany in spring. To do this I went for a couple of wonderful walks and a cycle ride around the picturesque rural area in which the hotel is set.
I also enjoyed swimming in the vast open air pool which is open also to members of the public who turn up in droves to immerse themselves in its hot waters. It was all wonderfully Italian, with large family groups chatting and laughing as they bobbed out amid steam in spring sunshine.
🌌 Floating Therapy & The Thermal Cave Experience
Grotta Giusti has recently undergone an extensive €1.5 million renovation. Verdi described the place as the “eighth wonder of the world” – mainly because it does boast the largest thermal cave in Europe - but I couldn’t help but wonder how much more he’d be impressed now
It is in the cave that guests can scuba dive or indulge in that spot of “floating therapy”, which I found to be a profoundly moving experience. People regularly come out of the cave in tears after floating weightlessly - some say it’s like being in their mother’s womb.
Your body adapts to the hot water in the cave where you are escorted at all times by experienced divers. The air is hot as well, so that when a diver holds you weightless on the tips of his fingers and gently swishes you about, you feel as though you are floating weightless in outer space.
🏛️ Bagni di Pisa: Aristocratic Spa Luxury
The pools and therapies available at the sister Bagni di Pisa hotel are altogether different. Same hot water, but another atmosphere. Slightly more upmarket. Reminiscent of the sort of place Agatha Christie might have visited. If Hercule Poirot ever went anywhere to “take the waters” this would be the place.
Actually, someone who did write something famous in this very hotel was Mary Shelley - who finished penning her story Frankenstein here after being partly inspired to write it back at home in Somerset’s Quantock Hills.
I attended a wine class in the sumptuous bar area named after her and husband, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. The Shelley bar is set in its original 18th century furnishings.
🌍 Location & Nearby Tuscan Gems
The Bagni di Pisa is an elegant five-star spa resort in San Giuliano Terme, just a few kilometres from Pisa, Livorno and Lucca, where we spent a wonderful Sunday morning exploring. And I’d say the hotel has more class in its little finger than many a hostelry I know where rooms cost three times the price.
👑 A Hotel Fit for Royalty
Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden and George IV both stayed here as well as the Shelleys and all their famous friends.
And if its good enough for the inventor of Frankenstein, it’s good enough for me. Although I did feel a little Frankenstein-like during a spa treatment which saw me covered head-to-toe in sea salt for some reason I could never quite determine.
🍷 Final Thoughts: A True Taste of Tuscany
I was soon back on my feet again enjoying a true sumptuous dinner. The food in both hotels is as fabulous as you’d expect, but as I’ve written about the culinary experience in another article I won’t repeat it here.
What I would say is - if you fancy a real and very elegant taste of Tuscany, then a stay at these hotels will most certainly fulfil your Italianate desires…
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