Terme di Giunone

Terme di Giunone is a thermal water park at Caldiero, about ten kilometres east of Verona in the Veneto. The operator describes a park that sets medieval bathing basins, where thermal water rises from natural seeps in the pool floor, alongside modern pools and water slides, all in grounds of cedars, firs, plane trees and limes. According to the site all five of its basins are supplied directly from two artesian wells, Brentella and Monte Rocca, which draw on the heart of the local thermal basin. The operator states that the Comune di Caldiero has owned the thermal complex since 1967, and that the park was awarded the Premio Parksmania in 2025. The park runs as a summer season; its current notice states that the 2026 season has ended and that the park is closed until May 2027.

Thermal water

The operator states that the water of the "Bagni di Giunone" concession has been authorised for thermal use and for bottling since 1993, and that the long programme of studies concluded on 7 January 1992 when the Italian Ministry of Health formally decreed the therapeutic properties of the water of the Brentella spring, certifying it for inhalation and drinking cures and for stimulating digestive function. The site describes the water as warm, barely radioactive and practically neutral at pH 7.3, with a fixed residue at 180°C of 468 mg/l, consisting mainly of bicarbonates and sulphates of calcium and magnesium with sodium and potassium present. In the historic Brentella and Cavalla basins, it states, the water rises spontaneously from the bottom after filtering naturally through 80 metres of mineral strata, and because of this continuous natural exchange chlorine is used in those two pools only to sanitise the surrounds. The operator gives the water temperature of the historic pools as a constant 26.4°C, which it says allows bathing in the cooler months as well.

Pools

The oldest basins are Cavalla and Brentella, which the operator dates to the medieval period and describes as unique of their kind, fed by natural seeps and set in a centuries-old wood of plane trees, horse chestnuts, yews and box hedges. Olimpia is the park's competition pool, which the site gives as 50 by 21 metres, used for swimming, play and racing, open in summer and in the evening until 21:30, with coloured floats marking lesson lanes apart from the free-swimming area. Junior, which the operator gives as about 295 square metres, is the children's pool, built around a large mushroom that rains water from a red and yellow cap and from whose stem three yellow slides run down for children aged five to ten. The pools page also describes a wave basin whose gradually shelving floor lets bathers sit or lie in the water while waves run at varying intensity, and a "Raining pool", a shelving lagoon with a large mushroom structure at its centre producing rain across the basin, waves, geyser-like bubbles, mist and hydromassage cascades.

Slides

The slides page presents four named attractions: Kamikaze, a particularly steep descent the operator recommends to the boldest; Toboga, a tube run in complete darkness ending in open water; Idrotubo, which the site calls the park's first and best-loved slide; and Bigriver, ridden on a one- or two-seat ring. The operator's information page sets height limits, barring Big River, Toboga, Kamikaze, Multipista and Spin Ball to children under 120 cm and Water Roller Coaster and Wave Ride to those under 140 cm, and states that under-14s must always be accompanied by an adult.

Sport and activities

According to the operator the park has for years hosted swimming courses, sports camps for children and teenagers, aqua gym and postural gymnastics in water. Beach volley and beach soccer courts on sand are laid out in the wooded grounds.

History

The operator traces written interest in the Caldiero waters to the fifteenth century: it states that in 1493 a commission of Provveditori was appointed, the thermal area was walled and the Brentella was given its present form, and that a marble tablet in the Brentella's outer wall records in Latin the stay of the Marquis Federico Gonzaga for thermal cures in 1524. The site says the Camaldolese friar Ventura Minardo analysed the mineral waters between 1567 and 1589, that plague in the Verona area between 1628 and 1631 led to the baths being abandoned, and that a house with marble tubs for private baths was built beside the Brentella in 1794, three of which are still kept on site. Restoration of the Brentella pool began in 1851, the modern Junior and Olimpia pools were inaugurated on 27 July 1977, and the Dugaletta basin was equipped for hydromassage between 1992 and 1995.

Dining and services

The site lists catering from breakfast to dinner across a bar, a hot-food counter and a pizzeria, kiosks selling bathing necessities, newspapers and magazines, sunbeds that can be reserved in advance, and lockers available for a fee. It states that online tickets are sold only for Saturdays and Sundays, with weekday admission bought at the park's own ticket desks, that there is no obligation to book, that animals are not admitted, and that reduced and resident rates require an identity document.

Opening hours

The operator gives the park's hours as 09:30 to 19:30, with the slides and the wave pool running 11:00 to 19:00, and publishes a low-season week in September with restrictions on which basins and slides open. Swim caps are stated to be compulsory only in certain basins, with signage at the entrance to each pool.