This post was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK)
Mist increases off 41C thermal waters and drifts throughout the snowdrifts that have actually settled beyond the infinity swimming pool and out into the valley. Around me, scantily clothed bathers are talking and canoodling, all eyes returning frequently to the incredible peaks, the snow-clad crags of the Italian Dolomites, crowned by piercing cyan skies and the quiet circling flight of a golden eagle.
The Romans understood a thing or 2 about perfect places. When they found warm springs rupturing from the ground here high in the Alps, they extremely smartly developed bathing homes in which to hang out and soak. There have actually been baths in Bormio for more than 2,000 years and the QC Terme Bagni Vecchi, where I am, is constructed on the initial structures of those ancient Roman swimming pools. And they’re simply as popular now as they were at that time. Rumour has it, Pliny the Elder and, later on, Leonardo de Vinci have actually dropped in to immerse themselves in the thermal waters.
And in 21st-century Bormio, the bathing chances do not stop at the old baths. QC Terme Bagni Nuovi (‘brand-new baths’), an art nouveau pink erection right out of the Wes Anderson design book, uses soak-seekers a more modern affair, framed by pine-forested slopes. The water-based wellness options here are practically boundless; a whole day would not suffice to attempt whatever. I swim in log fired swimming pools, dunk in plunge baths filled with terrific hunks of ice and brave jets of water rotating from hot to head-numbingly freezing. I sweat it out in saunas and steam bath fragrant with fat lots of dried lavender and baskets plentiful with citrussy curls of pinewood, scooping handfuls of soft clay mud, which I use freely before baking myself like a loaf in the heated log cabin next door. I fall onto a lounger to bask in the panorama.
Understood in your area as Wellness Mountain, Bormio has the Alp’s biggest thermal park, shared in between 3 health spas– the Vecchi and Nuovi, which are open just to visitors aged 14 or over, and the 3rd, in the town centre, is open to all. This being Italy, each consists of a delicious, mid-dunk banquet of regional cheese, salami, olives and a glass of something cold and bubbly.
Cantina Nino Negri is among the lots of Bormio dining establishments serving hyper-local food and white wine.
Picture by Cantina nino negri
Bormio residents are a friendly, sturdy lot who have actually increasingly protected the town’s self-reliance over the centuries.
Picture by Enrico Pozzi
While afternoons in Bormio are billed for soaking, I invest my early mornings on the mountain. The resort is a routine stop on the World Cup circuit. It’s hosted first-rate occasions for over 40 years, consisting of the Alpine Skiing World Cup, the yearly England National Skiing Championships and, in 2026, it’ll invite the Winter Olympics: Men’s Downhill, Super G,