From the late thirteenth century there was a hand-dug well here, sixty metres deep, and a great wheel that hauled up buckets of salt water: two horses turned it, then, from the mid-seventeenth century, five convicts serving life. A Napoleonic decree replaced them with paid workmen in 1811, and the wheel well kept working until 1897.
That water was for salt, until in 1839 the physician Lorenzo Berzieri realised it healed: from there grew one of Italy's major spa towns. It is salt-bromine-iodine water, four times saltier than the sea, 150 grams per litre. The town, 19,505 residents, sits among the Parma hills, where the Citronia and the Ghiara meet.
Tagliatelle al Ragù · Prosciutto di Parma
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Next up: Saint Vitalis, patron of the town of the ancient parish churches, Wednesday 28 April
Nearest airport: Parma, 25 km away
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📅 Every year, on 28 April
Salsomaggiore Terme celebrates Saint Vitalis on 28 April, in the church dedicated to him; the municipal territory also holds the ancient parish church of San Giovanni Battista and that of San Nicomede.
Only Italian pork and sea salt, aged for at least twelve months: Prosciutto di Parma has held Protected Designation of Origin status since 1996.
Read more →Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Salsomaggiore Terme, but an easy day trip away.
