Sirmione’s Thermal Waters: An Early Morning at Aquaria

Soak in Lake Garda's hot spring waters in outdoor pools facing the Alps, arriving for the first session before the spa fills.

Hot Springs Beneath the Lake

A thin strip of land pushes four kilometres out from Garda’s southern shore, and Sirmione’s old town fills its end. You cross into it past the Castello Scaligero, where the peninsula is thinnest, then follow the lanes toward the Roman ruins of the Grotte di Catullo on the point and down to the lakefront, where the Aquaria spa stands in a park above the lake. From its open-air pools you gaze out over the lake, and when the air is clear the Alps stand up beyond it.

The water spends around 20 years underground before it surfaces. Welling up under the lake floor some 25 metres out, the Boiola spring emerges at 69°C, classed as hyperthermal and sulfurous salsobromoiodic: full of hydrogen sulfide, iodine, bromine and sodium, gathered on its long journey through limestone from the Monte Baldo watershed.

From Catullus to the Venetian Diver

Sirmione’s thermal tradition goes back to Rome. The Grotte di Catullo are the remains of a villa of the Gens Valeria, and the Roman settlement was tied to the known healing powers of the spring water rising in the lake nearby. Catullus sang Sirmione’s praises in his poems, and the bond between this place and a particular kind of rest runs through the literature ever since.

In 1889 a Venetian diver named Procopio pinpointed the Boiola spring beneath the surface. A year later the first baths opened; in 1921 came the founding of the Società Terme e Grandi Alberghi di Sirmione; and Aquaria opened in 2003, nodding to the Roman tradition with pools for wellbeing.

Terme di Sirmione has two sides: clinics treating various ailments, with some care paid for by the Italian state health service, and Aquaria, which uses the same water for relaxation and the senses rather than clinical care.

Why the First Session Matters

The Aquaria complex spans 10,000 square metres in all: over 3,500 under cover, 6,500 of park and 700 of thermal water. It opens early, and in its opening session you find the pools and park at a pace and occupancy the later hours never match. The outdoor pools facing the lake and mountains are the heart of it, and both the view and the quiet around the water shift as more and more people arrive.

We book you into the first session and schedule a treatment before the main crowds arrive, a morning a mid-morning walk-in can’t recreate.

Treatments, whether hydromassage, aromachromatic showers, a sauna circuit, the vascular path or a tailored wellness programme, need booking ahead whatever time you arrive, and pairing one with the pools early on is the fullest way to experience the place. It’s a restorative morning for a couple or friends.

Pools, Showers and a Roman Neighbour

The outdoor pools sit in the waterfront park at the peninsula’s end. The water’s sulphur shows as a faint mineral note, and early light from the east catches the lake and the mountains beyond. Inside are aromachromatic showers, effervescent beds, hydromassage and a round of steam rooms, saunas and emotional showers, with a relaxation area of themed sensory rooms and personalised treatments and massages alongside the thermal circuit.

A short walk away, the Grotte di Catullo cover two hectares shaded by some 1,500 olives, their upper terraces looking across the whole lake to the Alps. Knowing that the Roman villa drew on the same spring gives your morning a depth no purpose-built spa hotel can offer.

Your Out Of Office LGBTQ+ travel specialist can pair it with a welcoming hotel on Lake Garda.