Thermal holidays

Since the second century B.C. the healing properties of water have played a fundamental part in the history of medicine. Diving in specific waters and drinking from certain springs have a purifying effect and Italy is among the most important thermal countries in Europe. Studies have confirmed that a cycle of thermal therapies, together with other specific treatments, is extremely useful for prevention and rehab. Besides preventing chronic diseases, the thermal waters are also used in relaxing and beauty treatments.

These mineral waters form under certain geologic conditions that give them their therapeutic properties. These bacteriologically-pure solutions cannot be reproduced and are categorized depending on their chemical elements and their therapeutic effects: cold, hypothermal, thermal, hyperthermal, sulfurous, radioactive and characterized by arsenic/bromine/iodine/carbon. Different chemical compositions correspond to different thermal therapies: drinking thermal water, diving in thermal water, antrum-therapy, inhalations, thermal muds.

Among the most important thermal localities in Italy there are Lombardia, Veneto, Emilia Romagna, Tuscany, Lazio and Campania with its island of Ischia, characterized by 100 thermal springs in the municipalities of Ischia Porto, Casamicciola Terme, Lacco Ameno, Forio d'Ischia and Barano d'Ischia.