Bandiera Blu
Bandiera Blu in Tuscany
13 towns
Tuscany holds 13 Bandiera Blu sites inside our catalogue. They cluster in the Livorno, Lucca, and Grosseto provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Grosseto, Livorno, and Piombino. 10 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
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Grosseto
Province: Grosseto · 10 m
The Maremma capital on the Ombrone river, ringed by hexagonal Medici walls of 1564 that now serve as the city's public park.
Livorno
Province: Livorno · 3 m
Tuscany's working port and Medici-planned 'New City' — a 16th-century planned town built on reclaimed coast, with a Venice-like canal quarter, the Quattro Mori monument, and a 1.5-km seafront promenade that locals call the world's most beautiful balcony.
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Piombino
Province: Livorno · 21 m
A promontory port facing Elba across the channel, founded by refugees from Etruscan Populonia and now the Tuscan archipelago's ferry capital.
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Castagneto Carducci
Province: Livorno · 194 m
A hilltop borgo at 194 meters above the Costa degli Etruschi, renamed for the poet Carducci in 1907 and the home of Bolgheri and Sassicaia.
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Castiglione della Pescaia
Province: Grosseto · 4 m
A Maremma seaside town under an Aragonese castle, with the Vetulonia necropolis behind it and Italo Calvino buried on the hill.
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Orbetello
Province: Grosseto · 3 m
A town on a narrow isthmus at the center of its own lagoon, fortified by Spain in 1557.
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Pisa
Province: Pisa · 4 m
Maritime republic on the Arno, twelve kilometers from the Ligurian Sea, with the leaning bell tower at the center of a single UNESCO-listed walled compound.
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Viareggio
Province: Lucca · 2 m
The Versilia capital, a Carnival city on the Tuscan coast that turned into a Belle Époque resort when the railway arrived.
Bibbona
Province: Livorno · 85 m
An Etruscan-origin hill village above the Costa degli Etruschi, with a Romanesque parish church and a Lorraine-built coastal fort eight kilometers down the road at Marina di Bibbona.
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Camaiore
Province: Lucca · 34 m
The Versilia commune that runs from the mountains to the sea, a Roman Campus Maior on the Via Francigena with a beach at its western end.
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Carrara
Province: Massa-Carrara · 80 m
The marble town at the foot of the Apuan Alps, with over 650 quarry sites in the valleys above and the stone that built the Pantheon, the Pietà and Michelangelo's David.
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Pietrasanta
Province: Lucca · 14 m
The marble-processing town under the Apuan Alps, worked by Michelangelo, Henry Moore, Joan Miró and Fernando Botero.
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Forte dei Marmi
Province: Lucca · 2 m
The Versilia luxury beach built around an eighteenth-century marble-loading fort, with 99 bagni concessions and a Wednesday market that draws Milan.
From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Cicala
Province: Catanzaro
A village of 887 people at 829 meters, founded in 1616 by farmers asking for land.
Fossombrone
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
An inland Marchigiano town on the Metauro river, layered over a Roman colony with a Renaissance ducal court rising above it.
Bagnoli del Trigno
Province: Isernia
The 'Pearl of Molise', a 637-resident borgo built into and around a massive limestone outcrop above the Trigno valley, with a medieval castle rebuilt on its summit.
Varenna
Province: Lecco
A fishing village founded in 769 on the Lecco arm of Lake Como, with a steep grid of streets falling into the water.
Rocca di Botte
Province: L'Aquila
At 750 meters on the Carseolani slopes between Abruzzo and Lazio, the birthplace of an eleventh-century hermit and a fief of the Colonna.