Piscine Carletti

About Piscine Carletti

The Piscine Carletti are the free hot springs best loved by people who live in Rome and Lazio, and it's not hard to see why. They are in the countryside just outside Viterbo, completely free, open all year round and at night too, and they have a large car park right next to the pools. Basically, you drive up, get out of the car and you're already in the water.

The sulphurous water arrives along a channel at a very high temperature, around 58-60 °C, and fills a series of man-made pools laid out one after another. It cools as it flows, so each pool has a different temperature: in the first ones the water is scalding, in the last ones it drops to around 30 °C. The fun is moving from one pool to the next until you find the right one.

The downside is that there are no facilities at all: no changing rooms, showers, toilets or bars. You need to bring everything from home, including water to rinse off and something to eat. At weekends and on summer evenings the pools fill up and, according to some reports, they can be rather noisy at night. If you're looking for peace and quiet, aim for weekdays or the early morning.

The pools closest to the channel are definitely too hot for children and for people with low blood pressure or heart problems: it's better to choose those further away and not stay in for too long. At night you'll need a torch, because the edges are wet and slippery. As at all free hot springs, respect for the place is essential: no glass bottles, no soap and no rubbish left behind.

The Carletti are a stone's throw from the Bullicame and a few kilometres from the Bagnaccio, so the Viterbo area is perfect for a budget hot spring weekend. The city's medieval old town, with its peperino stone palaces and fountains, is well worth a visit before or after your soak.