A 7-day trip through the Tuscan Maremma, based in Grosseto
The Maremma is the part of Tuscany that used to be underwater. It ran as malarial marsh from the Etruscan Coast down into Lazio until the nineteenth century drained it, which is why it has no skyline of banking towers in miniature and no Renaissance money buried in it. What it has instead is umbrella pine growing down to the sand, cattle country behind the dunes, lagoons that fill with flamingos, and Etruscan cities standing in open fields with nobody looking at them.
Almost everyone who comes to Tuscany goes inland. Florence, Siena, San Gimignano and the Chianti hills strung between them, which is a good week and a busy one. By September the photograph stops in the Val d'Orcia have queues and the hill towns price themselves accordingly.
The coast south of Livorno is the same region and reads nothing like it. It is flat where Chianti is vertical, it smells of pine resin and salt rather than cypress, and its towns are working ports, lagoon towns and Etruscan hill villages rather than small cities of art. It is also, hour for hour, much emptier.
This is a week of it, based in Grosseto and built out of our catalogue rather than off a map. None of the six day trips is more than 80 minutes from that base. Six of the seven towns are on the railway, so this is a week you can do without a car if you want to. Five of them hold the national bathing award, which a comune has to win back every single year on water quality, beach management and safety. September is the month to do it, and that is not a preference of ours: it is the month these towns' own seasonal notes keep returning to.
Two more lists worth reading alongside this one: The best coastal towns within two hours of Siena and The best hidden coastal towns that eat well in Toscana.
7 nights in Grosseto, in September
Everything on this list is a day trip from Grosseto. This is how far, by road.
- Orbetello44 min
- Castiglione della Pescaia47 min
- Campiglia Marittima52 min
- Capalbio61 min
- Castagneto Carducci68 min
- Bibbona80 min
Grosseto
Why visit Grosseto
Grosseto sits on the right bank of the Ombrone, ten meters above sea level and twelve kilometers inland from the Tyrrhenian. The Roman city of Roselle was destroyed in 935 by Saracen pirates; refugees regrouped on the plain below and Grosseto inherited the bishopric.
From 1336 it was Sienese; in 1559 it passed to the Medici after the battle of Montalcino. Cosimo I commissioned Baldassarre Lanci to replace the medieval walls with a hexagonal bastioned circuit, begun in 1565 and finished a decade later.
The walls are intact. Six bastions, two main gates, a continuous earthwork four kilometers around, now planted and used as the city's promenade.
Inside, the Duomo di San Lorenzo holds a Romanesque-Gothic façade in alternating white and pink marble. The Cassero Senese, the Sienese fortress of 1345 swallowed into the later Medici walls, anchors the southeast corner.
Grosseto is the largest city of southern Toscana and the working capital of the Maremma.
The beach here holds the national bathing award, which a comune has to win back every year on water quality, beach management and safety.
What to see in Grosseto
- Mura Medicee. Hexagonal bastioned circuit commissioned by Cosimo I in 1564, designed by Baldassarre Lanci, intact and walkable for the full four kilometers.
- Duomo di San Lorenzo. Thirteenth-century cathedral with a façade in alternating white and pink marble, Latin-cross plan, semicircular apse over the nave.
- Cassero Senese. Travertine-clad Sienese fortress completed in 1345, incorporated into the southeast corner of the Medici walls, now used for exhibitions.
How to get to Grosseto
This is where the week is based, for 7 nights, and everything else on this list is a day trip from here. There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Livorno is roughly 110 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May, September and October are the Maremma months. The walls and the Parco Regionale are open without the heat, the umbrella pines hold their shade, and the wild horses are visible at dawn near the Ombrone mouth. July and August push past thirty-five degrees and the city empties between one and six in the afternoon.
Orbetello
Why visit Orbetello
The isthmus runs out into the lagoon and splits it into two basins, Ponente and Levante. Two sand tombolos close the shape from either side: Giannella to the north, Feniglia to the south, both reaching toward the Monte Argentario promontory and meeting it at either end.
The Etruscans settled the site first, the Romans followed with their colony of Cosa nearby, and centuries later the Spanish took the isthmus as the seat of their coastal enclave, leaving the Governor's Palace on the main square where it still stands. Of the nine Sienese windmills once built out in the water, one remains in place, the only Italian water-and-wind mill of its type still fixed where it was built.
The lagoon that once carried Balbo's flying boats out toward Rio and Chicago now carries a WWF reserve and the nets of a bottarga and eel cooperative working the same waters since 1965. A town built on the water it is named for, held between two arms of sand and one mountain it never quite touches.
The beach here holds the national bathing award, which a comune has to win back every year on water quality, beach management and safety.
What to see in Orbetello
- Duomo di Santa Maria Assunta. Fourteenth-century cathedral with a Gothic travertine façade, rebuilt over an earlier Etruscan-Roman temple foundation.
- Fortificazioni Spagnole. The bastions and the Polveriera Guzman magazine, still standing along the edges of the historic center.
- Laguna di Orbetello. The brackish water splits into two basins and is now a WWF reserve and Ramsar wetland.
How to get to Orbetello
It is about 44 minutes from Grosseto by road, so this one is an easy day out and back. There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Roma is roughly 124 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May through September is when the lagoon and the Feniglia and Giannella beaches do their work. June brings the migratory bird count back up: flamingos, herons, avocets. July and August push temperatures over thirty degrees and the tombolos fill with Roman day-trippers, so the lagoon path on the Ponente side stays the quieter option. Sagra del Pesce di Albinia falls in the season.
Castiglione della Pescaia
Why visit Castiglione della Pescaia
Castiglione della Pescaia sits at sea level on the Maremma coast, north of Grosseto, with a medieval upper town rising on the promontory above the harbor. The site was Roman Salebrone, before that Etruscan and Umbrian, settled because of the lake behind it that the Romans called Portus Traianus.
The lake silted up over time; what remains of it is the wetland reserve southeast of town, a Ramsar site since 1991. The upper town and the harbor below it read as two halves of one settlement: the fortress watching the water from above, the working port beneath, and behind both the flat reclaimed ground where the lake used to be.
Inland and to the east, the hills hold the remains of one of the major Etruscan cities, apart from the coastal life below. North of town, the pine forest gave Calvino his summers and now holds his grave on the hill above the harbor.
The place is built in layers: a silted lake turned nature reserve, a watchtower turned fortress, an Etruscan hill city, and a modern coastline still shaped by all of it.
The beach here holds the national bathing award, which a comune has to win back every year on water quality, beach management and safety. It is also rated for accessibility, which most of this coast is not.
What to see in Castiglione della Pescaia
- Rocca Aragonese. Castle on the promontory above the harbor, 10th-century watchtower core enlarged by Alfonso of Aragon in the 15th century, modified by Cosimo I and the Lorraine.
- Riserva Naturale Diaccia Botrona. Wetland reserve southeast of town with bird-watching hides, pink flamingos and white herons in season.
- Casa Rossa Ximenes. Hydraulic structure built by Jesuit engineer Leonardo Ximenes for the Lorraine drainage works; now multimedia museum of the wetland reserve.
How to get to Castiglione della Pescaia
It is about 47 minutes from Grosseto by road, so this one is an easy day out and back. There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Livorno is roughly 113 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May and June bring warm sea and quiet beaches, before the high-summer crowds arrive from Rome and Florence. June through September holds the Bandiera Blu and the Diaccia Botrona stays accessible in the cooler hours. July and August push the coast above thirty; Punta Ala and the harbor fill, and the Rocca above the old town becomes a sunset destination. Palio Marinaro di Castiglione della Pescaia falls in August.
Campiglia Marittima
Why visit Campiglia Marittima
Campiglia Marittima sits at 231 meters on the last slopes of the Colline Metallifere above the Val di Cornia, eight kilometers inland from the Tyrrhenian coast and 60 kilometers southeast of Livorno. The Rocca occupies the highest point at 281 meters, a fortified semicircle whose 14th-century tower and town walls trace the medieval defensive line.
The territory has been mined since the Etruscans: copper, silver, lead and tin from the hills behind town, worked continuously until the last galleries closed in 1976. The Parco Archeominerario di San Silvestro, opened in 1996 on 450 hectares behind the town, centers on Rocca San Silvestro, a tenth and eleventh-century miners' village abandoned in the fourteenth century and excavated since 1984.
Visitors enter through restored galleries on a small electric train. Down on the plain the DOC Val di Cornia produces Sangiovese and Cabernet, and the thermal springs at Venturina, the frazione south of town, have flowed since Roman use as Aquae Populoniae.
What to see in Campiglia Marittima
- Rocca di Campiglia. Fortified semicircle at 281 meters with the 14th-century tower, walls and the Pieve di San Giovanni, the highest point of the town.
- Parco Archeominerario di San Silvestro. 450-hectare park behind town, opened 1996, with restored mining galleries, a small electric train, and the abandoned medieval miners' village of Rocca San Silvestro.
- Centro storico. Walled hilltop borgo of stone houses, with Piazza della Repubblica at its center, the medieval gates Porta a Mare and Porta Fiorentina still intact.
How to get to Campiglia Marittima
It is about 52 minutes from Grosseto by road, so this one is an easy day out and back. There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Livorno is roughly 67 minutes away by road.
✷ We have written about Campiglia Marittima
“That is the thing the young man on the beach did not see, and the man who lives here cannot stop seeing. This is an industrial coast wearing a beach towel. Run it back far enough and the whole of it, the swamp and the steel and the slag and the white water, is one long story about iron, and the holiday is the costume the story put on after the work ran out.”
Read our piece on Campiglia Marittima →The Iron Coast | The Wrong Sea
Our tip
May through September is the season on the Val di Cornia: warm days, sea breezes that climb the hill, harvest of Sangiovese and Vermentino from late August. The beaches at San Vincenzo and Baratti are eight to fifteen kilometers away and pull the day-traffic. July and August are hot and busy on the coast; the borgo on the hill stays a few degrees cooler.
Capalbio
Why visit Capalbio
Capalbio stands twelve kilometers from the Tyrrhenian coast, the last hill town before the border with Lazio. Charlemagne gave the land to the Abbey of Tre Fontane in 805; the Aldobrandeschi held it through the medieval period, the Orsini built the castle, and Cosimo I de' Medici took it in 1555.
It became an independent commune in 1960. The medieval walls and the fortress define the centro storico at the top of the hill; the surrounding territory drops from the wooded uplands of Monte Calmata down to the coastal reserve at Lago di Burano.
The sculpture park sits four kilometers south of the walls, apart from the old town rather than within it. A borgo that governed itself late, held by abbey, feudal lords and Medici in turn before its own commune, and a territory that runs in one line from hilltop stone to coastal wetland.
What to see in Capalbio
- Rocca Aldobrandesca. Medieval fortress at the top of the borgo, later expanded by the Orsini, with a square tower and battlements that overlook the Maremma.
- Mura medievali. Two concentric circles of walls enclosing the centro storico, with a walkable parapet that opens onto views toward the Argentario.
- Giardino dei Tarocchi. Sculpture park four kilometers south of the borgo, its ceramic and mirrored figures set among holm oaks.
How to get to Capalbio
It is about 61 minutes from Grosseto by road, so this one is an easy day out and back. There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Roma is roughly 108 minutes away by road.
✷ We have written about Capalbio
“Everyone driving from Florence down to Rome crosses the Maremma without noticing, because there is nothing on that stretch to make them slow down. The hills give out. The cypresses stop. What opens up instead is flat open country, wheat and grass running off to a few low rises, the least Tuscan-looking part of Tuscany, a landscape you would call dull if you were being honest and which most guidebooks solve by leaving out.”
Read our piece on Capalbio →Maremma | The Last Cowboys of Tuscany
Our tip
May through September is the season the borgo and its territory work together: the centro storico stays cool at 217 meters while the Tyrrhenian coast at Chiarone-Capalbio fills with swimmers. The Giardino dei Tarocchi runs April through October. July and August are hot inland; afternoon hours in the borgo thin out and the coast takes over.
Castagneto Carducci
Why visit Castagneto Carducci
Castagneto Carducci sits at 194 meters on a hill above the Costa degli Etruschi, sixty kilometers south of Livorno. The town was called Castagneto until 1907, when it was renamed for the poet Giosuè Carducci, who spent part of his childhood here and made the surrounding landscape the subject of Davanti a San Guido.
The Castello della Gherardesca, the Lombard-origin fortress of the counts who held the land for nine centuries, still anchors the centro storico. Below the hill, on a coastal plain that locals call the Maremma livornese, sits the frazione of Bolgheri.
In 1944, Mario Incisa della Rocchetta planted Cabernet Sauvignon on his estate there; the resulting wine, Sassicaia, started the category that journalists in the 1970s named Supertuscan. Bolgheri DOC was created in 1983 and Bolgheri Sassicaia DOC in 1994, a sub-zone for a single estate.
The cypress avenue from the coast road up to Bolgheri, two parallel rows planted in 1832, is the one Carducci put in the poem.
The beach here holds the national bathing award, which a comune has to win back every year on water quality, beach management and safety.
What to see in Castagneto Carducci
- Castello della Gherardesca. Lombard-origin fortress at the top of the borgo, held by the Della Gherardesca counts for nine centuries, still in private family use.
- Viale dei Cipressi. Five-kilometer cypress avenue between the SS1 Aurelia and the frazione of Bolgheri, planted in 1832 and immortalized by Carducci.
- Bolgheri. Coastal-plain frazione at 88 meters, walled medieval village turned wine capital, home of Sassicaia, Ornellaia and the Bolgheri DOC.
How to get to Castagneto Carducci
It is about 68 minutes from Grosseto by road, so this one is an easy day out and back. There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Livorno is roughly 55 minutes away by road.
✷ We have written about Castagneto Carducci
“You reach Bolgheri up a straight avenue of cypresses, five kilometers of them standing in two close files like a colonnade with the roof taken off, and the road does the thing it was planted centuries ago to do, which is tell you before you get there that you are arriving somewhere that thinks a great deal of itself. The comune the village belongs to carries its name.”
Read our piece on Castagneto Carducci →Bolgheri | The Story of an Amaro
Our tip
May through September is the season the comune fills, the coast at Marina di Castagneto holds Bandiera Blu, and the Bolgheri cellars run their tastings on appointment. The Bolgheri DiVino wine festival runs in mid-August. July and August push afternoon temperatures past thirty and the cypress avenue stops being walkable in midday sun.
Bibbona
Why visit Bibbona
Bibbona sits at 85 meters in the Val di Cecina, in the southern province of Livorno, eight kilometers from the sea. The town has Etruscan origins, attested by a small bronze goat statuette, now in the Florence archaeological museum, that became the town symbol.
After medieval struggles between Pisa and Florence, the territory passed to the Gherardesca counts, who controlled most of the Etruscan Coast. Monk-knights, probably French and probably Templar, operated from the pieve in the medieval period, a detail that survives more clearly in local memory than in stone.
The village keeps its hill position while its coastal frazione does the work of meeting the sea: the fort once handled customs, sanitary inspection and defense, the beach now holds a national recognition, and the reserve in the inland hills once supplied the wood that moved through that same coastline. Upper town, shore and forest were never separate economies so much as three faces of one strip of land running from the Val di Cecina down to the sea.
The beach here holds the national bathing award, which a comune has to win back every year on water quality, beach management and safety.
What to see in Bibbona
- Pieve di Sant'Ilario. The church stands on Piazza XX Settembre. The right side and facade keep their Romanesque lines, while the added left nave throws the plan out of square, a visible seam between two building campaigns three centuries apart.
- Borgo medievale. Concentric ring of stone streets and stairways around the old castle, with surviving medieval gates and the central piazza.
- Forte di Marina di Bibbona. Built for customs control, sanitary inspection and defense against corsairs, the fort held a working coastline job, not a decorative one, watching the same shore the beach now occupies.
How to get to Bibbona
It is about 80 minutes from Grosseto by road, so this one is an easy day out and back. There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Livorno is roughly 51 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May and June bring warm water and quiet beaches, before the July and August crowds reach the Costa degli Etruschi. The borgo at 85 meters stays five degrees cooler than the coast and is the place to sleep in high summer. July and August are full: Marina di Bibbona fills, the pine-shaded beach fronts get crowded, and the Forte sees long queues at sunset.
More from Anywhere Italy
The best coastal towns within two hours of Siena- The best hidden coastal towns that eat well in Toscana
- The best hidden coastal towns you can reach by train in Toscana
The best coastal towns in the province of Grosseto
The best towns with a serious restaurant in the province of Grosseto
The 7 best coastal towns in the province of Livorno