After the day’s Olympic skiing races had ended and the sunset had drenched the Italian Alps in a soft pink glow, the ancient spa above the town of Bormio came to life.
Eager visitors shed their coats, sweaters and boots to slip into swimsuits. They donned plush white robes and stepped outside, the near-freezing cold prickling their exposed skin. Then they plunged into steamy pools tinged with the faint smell of sulfur.
“It feels ancient,” said Laure Bollinger, who had come from neighboring Switzerland to watch her country’s skiers dominate the Alpine events during the day — and to get in a little après-ski thermal bathing in the evening.
She may not have known it, but some of the same elite skiers she saw compete at the Winter Games are also enthusiasts of the hot springs, whose healing properties have been written about for centuries. Skiing’s World Cup circuit brings athletes annually to the challenging Stelvio course in Bormio, where locals eagerly proclaim that the thermal waters reduce inflammation, which can help in physical recovery.
So over two weeks of Olympic events in Bormio, some visitors ditched the quiet town and headed a few minutes north to Valdidentro, where some baths have been turned into two sumptuous, adults-only spas that cater to tourists. Many Bormio residents get their thermal water fix at the local baths near the city center, which have indoor and outdoor pools and a water slide for children.
The most dedicated devotees of natural thermal waters, however, trek to baths tucked around the trails of Stelvio National Park, their exact locations known mainly by locals and shared by word of mouth. That is how we found ourselves lost amid snowy mountain trails one day last week.
We were looking for a place that locals call “la pozza di Leonardo,” or Leonardo’s well (as in da Vinci). After hiking up and down the mountain for 90 minutes, we had found a pair of frigid, snow-covered pools and traipsed behind a four-star hotel. But no pozza.
We had already visited Bagni Vecchi and Bagni Nuovi, the two upscale spas. At Bagni Vecchi, Ms. Bollinger raved about relaxing in two of the oldest pools, both inside a small former church. Moments later, she gasped and pointed to the mountainside. About half a dozen young Alpine ibexes were grazing undisturbed just a few feet away.
“You rarely see them this close,” Ms. Bollinger said.
Ancient Romans considered thermal waters to be medicinal and rejuvenating; the Latin phrase “salus per aquam” translates to “health through water.” Nine hot springs deep under the Alps naturally keep the water between 98.6 and 104 degrees Fahrenheit, or 37 and 40 degrees Celsius.
The Roman statesman Cassiodorus wrote about Bormio’s baths in the fourth century A.D. In the Middle Ages, monks charged travelers for lodging in rustic accommodations near the baths. Leonardo himself wrote about staying there in 1493.
Today, Bormio’s leaders market their medieval town of about 4,000 year-round residents as “the wellness mountain.” When a publicist for Bormio’s tourism bureau learned The New York Times was going to the baths to report this article, she implored us to take time to relax, too.
Some elite skiers have visited the baths for years.
“I love going to hot springs,” said Sam Morse, 29, an American who competed in this year’s Olympic men’s downhill and super-G races. “I think it’s really nice for recovery, too, just soaking in them for a bit.”
They are certainly easy to soak in. Your muscles relax. The steam clears your nasal passages. As the temperature drops outside, it becomes harder to muster the fortitude to leave the water. But, Mr. Morse warned, “You don’t want to turn into a noodle.”
He first went to the spas above Bormio eight or nine years ago. Then he learned about la pozza, and started going there.
“These things are older than the entire United States,” he said. “It’s cool, because it’s something that you get to go and experience that is historic but not just going to a museum or a castle and walking around. In a way, you get to step back in time.”
Before the super-G race, Mr. Morse posted a video to Instagram showing his climb up to a stunning, unnamed natural bath. “Best way to take your mind off Olympic pressure?” he wrote in the caption. “Climb a mountain, sit in a hot springs, and soak in the views.”
He said he had seen a picture of the place from the Swiss skier Marco Odermatt, who won two silver medals and a bronze at these Games. After his post, Mr. Morse said he received comments from locals chiding him for revealing a hard-to-find spot that requires a dangerous climb.
“They really do not want tourists trekking up there,” he said.
La pozza is far more accessible and better known, he said — including, it seems, to other Olympians. Birk Ruud, the Norwegian skier who won gold in the slopestyle competition, appeared to go a few days later, according to an Instagram post from his fiancée.
We were about to give up on finding the place when we came across a young woman who offered to lead the way. She took us off the trail, around the narrow edge of a boulder, exactly where I had been sure we should not go, and toward the Adda River. A little farther was the well, a modest, slightly steaming pool jutting from the rocks.
All that hiking, for this?
Then we stopped and admired the view. We took in the stillness. A light snow began to fall, and a pair of ibexes rustled through the trees. It did feel like we had stepped back in time. And, maybe for a little bit, we relaxed.
Patricia Mazzei is the lead reporter for The Times in Miami, covering Florida and Puerto Rico.
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