Terme dei Dogi®

THE EMOTIONS OF A WITHOUT EQUAL STAY FROM SERENISSIMA’S SOVEREIGNS

DOGES AND CAPTAINS AT THE THERMAL BATHS
The Doges of Venice were aware of the thermal waters and salts healing properties. They themselves frequented the “Baths”, and as supreme commanders of the troops they hosted in Montegrotto, at state’s expense, their General Captains infirm for war reasons: so it was in XV° century for the famous captain of fortune Gattamelata, which Donatello portrayed in the equestrian monument located in front of the Basilica of S. Antony in Padua.

The Doges were therefore aware of the importance of the “Baths” to regenerate the physical and mental conditions of their valuable General Captains, and consequently of the role played by water and thermal salts for the intestinal microbiota, in relation to several diseases: osteoarticular and cardiovascular, as well as metabolic and respiratory.

The task of the Captains was also to hire troops for the ground army across Europe. Thus, between XV° and XVI° century, warriors named Gotward arrived from Germany to the Republic of Venice, who settled especially in the area of the Euganean Hills and Montegrotto, Italianizing the surname in Gottardo. Among these are the ancestors of our Gottardo Family, historically linked thereafter to the events of the land of the Doges and their spas.

ON THE TRAILS OF THE DOGES OF VENICE
The Hotel Garden Terme and the Terme dei Dogi® renew in our days the historical bond that for centuries has joined the Republic of Venice, the “Serenissima”, to the territory of the Euganean Hills and its resources. In XV° century the Venetian nobility began to sojourn in the “Villas” in the Euganean area and to attend the thermal “Baths” of S. Pietro Montagnon, as it was then called the town of Montegrotto.

In the second half of the XVIII° century, the Serenissima Republic itself got certified its health-giving properties from the authoritative University of Padua Medical College: scientific attention was born for what we today call thermal medicine.

THE CARE FOR A “BONA VITA” TODAY AS THEN
Retracing the same centuries-old hospitality tradition of the thermal “Baths”, the Hotel Garden Terme proposes to the Guests the treatments for a “bona vita”, made of physical and mental well-being, with the Salts from its springs, the mud therapy, the inhalation therapies: thermal medicine precisely!
The extraordinary qualities of the waters and especially of the thermal salts were known since ancient era and their fame never failed over time: in 1300 Jacopo Dondi dell’Orologio, Francesco Petrarca’s personal physician who then resided in nearby Arquà, wrote about it in “De causa salsedinis aquarum”.

GUESTS AT THE DOGES’ TABLE
“Bona vita” and “well-being”, they mean also good food and good drinking: the Hotel Garden Terme offers to the Guests many recipes from centuries-old Venetian cuisine.
A feast of ancient flavours, qualified in satisfying the most demanding tastes, enhanced by the distinguishing selection of wines historically linked to the table of the Doges of Venice.
And in the path of the “Serenissima” tradition, even the Caffè del Doge® produced by the olden Venetian roasting, reminds to the Guests that the history of the most widespread drink in the world begins exactly in Venice, in the XVII° century, when it was still considered a medicinal and healthy infusion.