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00 Pietrasanta
Stemma di Pietrasanta

Tuscany · Lucca

Pietrasanta

The marble-processing town under the Apuan Alps, worked by Michelangelo, Henry Moore, Joan Miró and Fernando Botero.

Best time
May–Sep
By car
41 min from Pisa
By train
Station in the comune
Population
22,870

Known for

  • MARBLE SCULPTURE

    Working center for marble sculpture since the fifteenth century, with over a dozen active studi inside the centro storico.

  • BOTERO

    Fernando Botero bought a house here in 1983, became an honorary citizen in 2001, and held an 80-work town-wide exhibition in 2012.

  • MARINA DI PIETRASANTA

    Three-kilometer Bandiera Blu beach with the Versiliana pinewood and a summer cultural festival running since 1980.

When to visit

Best · May–Sep

  • J12°
  • F13°
  • M14°
  • A17°
  • M21°
  • J25°
  • J28°
  • A29°
  • S25°
  • O21°
  • N16°
  • D13°
  • Best
  • Hot or crowded
  • Quiet
  • Mostly closed

Daytime averages, 2020–2024. The sea is warmest in August at 28° and coldest in February at 12°. Weather data by Open-Meteo.com.

The festa: Martino di Tours, 11 November

Why come

Pietrasanta sits at the foot of the Apuan Alps, two kilometers from the Tyrrhenian, close enough to the quarries behind it and the coast in front of it that stone and sea both shape the town. It was founded in 1255 by Luca Guiscardo da Pietrasanta on the older fortress that already stood on the hill, and it grew through the fifteenth century into the processing center for marble cut from the mountains at its back. The centro storico, where the studi and foundries still work, sits inland; the beachfront with its pinewood park lies on the coast, a separate register of the same town, one built for stone and one for summer.

Michelangelo arrived in the early 1500s to work the local stone, and Henry Moore, Joan Miró and Damien Hirst followed in the twentieth century, drawn by the same studios and foundries that cut marble for the Duomo's façade centuries earlier. The Mariani foundry on the outskirts now casts work for sculptors who order remotely from New York and Beijing. What began as a quarry town for one church has become a place where the working of stone, not the display of it, is the thing on view.

We've been

Feature from our free newsletter

Pietrasanta | Old Money, Long Afternoons

The first town we lived in was up in the mountains, a hundred people above a curve in the road, a church, a grocer who opened for four hours a day twice a week and closed if it rained, and for the first few weeks we had all of it, the stone houses and the old men on the benches and the kind of silence you read about in books. By the second month, we had understood what we didn't know when we moved in, which is that silence is a skill most of us don't have.

From the Pietrasanta letter, April 2026

Read the full feature on anywhereitaly.com

Read on

Pietrasanta in our articles

How to get there

From Florence / Pisa (PSA), about 50 minutes by car.

Genoa (GOA) is about 1h 49m away.

By car from the centre of Pisa 41 minutes or Florence 1h 27m.

There is a railway station in the comune, so you can arrive without a car.

Coming from Pisa, Florence or Genoa?

Coming by train into Livorno Centrale? Pietrasanta is about 42 minutes away by road.

Every town within reach of Florence / Pisa airport.

Pietrasanta, photo 1
Pietrasanta, photo 2

What to see

  • Duomo di San Martino

    White-marble façade on the collegiate church, first documented in 1223 and enlarged in 1330 and 1387. It faces the square that still functions as the town's civic center.

  • Piazza Duomo

    Main square with the Marzocco column celebrating Florence's 1513 reacquisition and a statue of Grand Duke Leopold by Vincenzo Santini.

  • Museo dei Bozzetti

    Civic museum holding 700 plaster models and clay sketches from sculptors who have worked in the local studios since the 1960s, a record of process rather than finished work.

  • Studi e Fonderie

    Active sculptor studios and bronze foundries in the centro storico, including the Mariani foundry where Botero cast his Pietrasanta bronzes.

  • Marina di Pietrasanta

    Three-kilometer Versilia beachfront with Bandiera Blu status and the pinewood Versiliana park where the summer literary festival runs.

  • Rocca di Sala

    Pre-1255 fortress on the hill above the centro storico, the original castle around which the town was founded.

The slow-trip planner

Building a trip? Find where Pietrasanta fits in a slow Italy circuit.

Answer five questions. We will shape a geographically coherent slow trip from the 1,000 Italian towns most travelers skip. Yours to save and share.

Plan your trip

We’ve tried

What we got up to

Restaurants, walks, swims — the things we actually did in Pietrasanta, each with the piece we wrote about it.

We recommend

Where to eat

Not our picks, but places the guides put their name to: a Michelin star, a Gambero Rosso fork, a Slow Food snail, a Michelin Key for the hotels. Worth a table, a counter, or a night when you pass through.

  • FilippoRistorante

    Filippo has two Gambero Rosso forks (82/100) and a spot in the Michelin Guide.

  • La MartinaticaRistorante

    La Martinatica holds one Gambero Rosso fork (79/100) and a spot in the Michelin Guide.

  • PeposoTrattoria

    Two Gambero Rosso prawns for Peposo, and a Slow Food snail.

  • AlexRistorante

    Alex holds a spot in the Michelin Guide.

  • Da GigiRistorante

    A Gambero Rosso listing, at Da Gigi.

  • L'Enoteca MarcucciWine Bar

    Three Gambero Rosso bottles, at L'Enoteca Marcucci.

  • Osteria StappasogniTrattoria

    Osteria Stappasogni holds two Gambero Rosso prawns.

  • ParadisRistorante

    Paradis holds one Gambero Rosso fork (79/100).

  • SementisBistrot

    Sementis holds two Gambero Rosso tables.

Through the year

What happens here

Feasts and festivals that come back year after year. We give the month rather than the date, because the date moves and the month rarely does. Check with the source before you plan a journey around one.

Living here

  • Population 22,870
  • Commuter belti
  • Pharmacy in town
  • High school within a 30-minute drive
  • Train station in the comune
  • Nearest airport Florence / Pisa, 50 min drive
  • Regional capital Firenze, 1 h 27 min drive

Common questions

What is Pietrasanta known for?
Pietrasanta is the marble-processing town under the Apuan Alps, worked by Michelangelo, Henry Moore, Joan Miró and Fernando Botero.
Where is Pietrasanta?
Pietrasanta is a comune in the province of Lucca, in Tuscany, at 14 meters above sea level.
What is the nearest airport to Pietrasanta?
Florence / Pisa (PSA), about 50 minutes by car.
Can you get to Pietrasanta without a car?
Yes. There is a railway station in the comune, so you can arrive by train.
How long is the drive from Pisa to Pietrasanta?
About 41 minutes by car.
When is the best time to visit Pietrasanta?
Best in May–Sep. August is the warmest month, averaging 29 degrees, and December the wettest, with about 16 rain days.
Is there a sagra or a festival in Pietrasanta?
Yes. Pietrasanta Medievale a Pietrasanta. October is when the first of them falls.
Which other towns are like Pietrasanta?
Seravezza, Carrara and Montignoso.
How many people live in Pietrasanta?
22,870 at the 2023 count.
Tags & datadesignations · numbers · sources

The numbers

  • Elevation: 14 m
  • Population: 22,870
  • Surface area: 41.6 km²

These figures were compiled from public directories: ISTAT, OpenStreetMap and Wikidata, and from the official listings of the guides named on this page. Town details change; verify with official sources before you travel.

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