Maremma

The Maremma is Tuscany’s wild southwest: a coastal regional park where wild boar and long-horned Maremmana cattle graze beneath ruined abbeys, Etruscan cities asleep under grass, natural hot springs pouring into travertine pools, and lagoons where flamingos feed. It is a landscape for slow travel — on foot, horseback or canoe — crowned by hill towns and a strongly savoured wine culture.

Why visit

The Maremma feels unlike the postcard Tuscany of cypress-lined villas. Here the land runs to the sea in a broad sweep of marsh, pine forest, scrub-covered hills and long empty beaches, and large parts of it are formally protected. The Maremma Regional Park (Uccellina Mountains Park) protects a rare stretch of intact Mediterranean nature, a great island of wilderness facing the sea where wolves have returned and Maremmana cattle still roam half-wild.

This is a destination for travellers who want to move through landscape rather than tick monuments: walking the park’s official trail network, paddling its wetlands, soaking in free natural hot springs at dusk. History runs deep too — Etruscan Roselle, medieval abbeys and walled hill towns — and the region’s food and wine, above all the Morellino di Scansano, give every day a satisfying close.

Character and history

The Maremma occupies the southern coast of Tuscany around Grosseto, a territory long notorious for its malarial marshes and worked for centuries by butteri, the traditional cattle herders of the coastal plains. Reclamation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries drained the wetlands and reshaped the economy, but the wildest coastal strip survived, protected since the seventies as the regional park that stretches from the Uccellina hills down to the sandy shore.

Layered over this landscape is an older story. Roselle, now the Archaeological Park of Roselle just north of Grosseto, grew from the seventh century BC into one of the great Etruscan cities, ringed by more than three kilometres of walls, then flourished as a Roman town with amphitheatre, forum and baths before decline set in; the diocese moved to Grosseto in 1138 and the city gradually emptied. In the hills, Benedictine monks built San Rabano Abbey, whose haunting ruins still crown the Uccellina ridge inside the park.

What to see

The heart of any visit is the park itself. Start at the Alberese Visitor Centre, where tickets, maps and guided options are arranged, then set out on the Official Trails of the Maremma Park, a network of itineraries on foot, by bike, on horseback, by canoe and along the beach. Trail A1 climbs through Mediterranean scrub to the San Rabano Abbey (ruins), with views that run from the pine forest to the coastline.

Beyond the park, four sites define the wider area. The Archaeological Park of Roselle offers roughly two kilometres of visitor route across its two hills, passing Etruscan house foundations, cyclopean walls and Roman monuments. At Saturnia, the Mulino Waterfalls of Saturnia (Cascate del Mulino) cascade into terraced travertine pools of warm sulphurous water, free and open to the air beside an old mill. On the Argentario coast, the Spanish Fortress of Porto Santo Stefano keeps watch over the harbour, and the WWF Oasis of the Orbetello Lagoon, established in 1971 within a Ramsar site, protects one of Italy’s most important wetlands for birdlife. Inland, the Walls of Magliano in Toscana enclose one of the area’s most characterful hill towns, and the Archaeological and Vine and Wine Museum of Scansano ties the region’s ancient past to its wine present.

How to experience

Give the park a full day at minimum. Book ahead where required — access to some itineraries and the beach sector is regulated — wear proper shoes, and consider a guided walk or a horseback ride with the butteri tradition in mind; early morning and late afternoon are best for wildlife and light. Canoe trips on the Ombrone channel the wetland experience perfectly.

Plan a thermal interlude at Saturnia, ideally early in the morning or after sunset, when the travertine pools are quietest; bring water shoes, as the stone is slippery. Combine it with the hill towns of the Albegna valley. Base yourself in one of the agricultural estates around Alberese or in Grosseto, and let each day take a different direction: coast and park one day, Etruscan archaeology another, wine country the third. Tastings in Scansano and around Magliano turn Morellino into a thread that runs through the whole stay.

Practical planning

The Maremma is car country: Grosseto has rail connections to Pisa and Rome, but trailheads, hot springs and hill towns spread widely, so a rental car repays itself quickly. The park’s main access is from Alberese, on the Grosseto–Rome coastal road, with seasonal shuttle arrangements depending on the year; access rules, dog prohibitions and ticketing change seasonally, so consult the park’s official channels before travelling.

Spring and autumn are the finest seasons — green and flowering on one end, warm seas and clear light on the other. High summer is hot inland, though the coast breathes; the hot springs are open year-round and can be magical on cold days. Bring cash for small producers, book park visits and tastings in advance, and pack binoculars: the lagoons and park meadows reward patient watchers.

Nearby places

• Pitigliano — a dramatic tuff town with Etruscan and Jewish heritage, east into the inland Maremma.
• Sorano — a fortified tuff village carved into the rock, near Pitigliano.
• Sovana — a small Etruscan and medieval borgo with remarkable vie cave nearby.