Carlo and I were in Maremma for our summer holidays in the last weeks. Obviously we wanted to taste some  traditional recipes of  Maremma to do them at home again.

Now we recommend some of them to you, obviously the best according to our taste and knowledge of Italian cuisine.

Grosseto
La 16. It’s a typical restaurant in the historical center. You can find traditional and original dishes made with fish and meat. Generally they use traditional Tuscan products or local products.
We ate some specialties and appreciated them very much. They were so tasty that we were able to eat a starter, a first and a second course.  We have already told of this restaurant in a previous entry. Read more about its strange name …

Pitigliano
Guastini hotel and restaurant.  It’s easy to find it. It is situated just before entering the historical center. Here you can taste typical Tuscan recipes but we also ate Sfratto dei Goym. Sfratto dei Goym is a cake due to the combination of Jewish and Maremma cuisine. Guastini restaurant offers other dishes born from this combination.
You can eat quickly and that’s important making a tour.

Marina di Grosseto
Pantagruel. The restaurant is in Via Bellini. It’s easy to find. Fantastic its dishes made with fish! We also ate assorted cheeses accompanied with fresh fruit such as kiwi. You can’t but have a lunch or dinner and taste its  fantastic starters or pasta dishes … Enjoy them!

If you’re in Maremma you should find and taste these products: Tuscan ham, stracchino soft cheese, smoked eel, mullet roe, wild boar sausage, Tuscan pecorino cheese, Tuscan olive oil, Tuscan pasta such as pici.
Remember to taste these recipes: tagliatelle or pappardelle with wild boar sauce, all the fantastic Tuscan soups such as acquacotta, lamb and veal recipes, sfratto (a typical cake of Pitigliano), Maremma cattle dishes ….

Greetings from Italy

Carlo & Loretta

In the last weeks we went to Maremma (Tuscany) for our holidays.
Our aim was to go to the seaside but visit Maremma too. So we chose a place near to the sea but ideal to reach the most important touristic localities.
Maremma is full of resorts, historical remains and natural parks and it is possible to make some interesting gastronomic tours. If you want to make a great gift to yourself plan a vacation in Maremma.

We rented a little one-roomed flat in an apartment hotel at Principina a Mare.

Here are the details:

Il Tombolo

SP 40 della Trappola n.168/A
Loc. Bivio per Principina a Mare – 58100 Grosseto (GR)
Call  +39056432240

We had all we need a cooking area included. Our flat was well equipped and we liked very much a balcony where we could eat in the evening.
In the hotel there are also two swimming pools. We could have a relaxing  bathe after our tours.
Besides there is a restaurant near the hotel where we had dinner every time we returned too tired to cook. It offers fish and meat dishes of the local tradition.
Staff is kind and available to give us all the information we needed.

We spent quiet and relaxing vacations.

Greetings from Italy

Carlo & Loretta

The last vacation days in Maremma for Carlo and me. Carlo and I thought we couldn’t leave Tuscany without seeing Argentario in the “Costa d’argento” and so yesterday morning we left Grosseto and drove along the southern coast of Maremma.

Along the road we noticed the signs for “The Maremma Regional Park”. It is known also as “Parco dell’Uccellina” because it includes the Uccellina hills. This is the largest protected oasis in Maremma and provides itineraries of different lenghts and difficulty dedicated to all the ecosystems (the marsh, hills, river mouth and pinewood) of the area and not only. You can also observe some interesting historical buildings. I have already visited it many years ago. I accompanied a group of boys. What a pity not to be able to visit it with my husband in these days! But we have promised ourselves to return the next spring. In spring we won’t go to the seaside and will have more time to visit many places we have lost in these days. You need few days to visit Maremma and you have to plan accurately your trip to avoid wasting time.

We reached Argentario through Via Aurelia. Argentario is a massive limestone connected to the shoreline by two natural landfills known in Italian as tombolo della Giannella (Giannella landfill) and tombolo della Feniglia (Feniglia landfill). These landfills are sand banks born in the past thanks to the  action of  wind, currents and river debris. You can find the Orbetello lagoon inside the two landfills and in the same time the lagoon is divided into two parts by a  bridge known as “Diga” (in English you can call it dam). Driving along the “Diga” you can reach easily Orbetello from the Argentario promontory. We hope our description is clear but if you have any doubt you can see a map of Argentario on this page of Google maps

The best thing would be flying over this area to realize how it is made or to reach the highest points such as Punta Telegrafo (m 635) that overlooks the whole area included the isles of Giglio, Montecristo and Giannutri.

Driving slowly along the landfill of Giannella to reach the Argentario we saw a long pinewood that hides the sandy beaches. Locals told us they are fantastic!

Finally we arrived at Monte Argentario and went towards Porto Santo Stefano. The landscapes we could see driving struck us. The first impression we had?  Monte Argentario is worth a vacation. It’s an ideal place for people who love sea, nature, historical remains, food and wine. Porto Santo Stefano is a lovely and renowed seaside resort and a port for pleasure boats. We liked it at first sight. Very characteristic. We walked along the new Giugiaro promenade and the narrow streets with a lot of nice shops (where we bought many beautiful and comfortable shoes at bargain price – extraordinary if you think it is a famous resort).
Then we took some pictures of its Spanish fortress and the wonderful landscape below.
We would have liked to visit also the Aquarium of the Mediterranean and Costa d’Argento. We had read it has fourteen tanks, seven of which are viewing tanks containing hundreds of animal and plant species such as grouper, moray eels, sharks, seahorses, octopus, lobster. What a pity to find the opening is at 16:00 in summer. Too late!

We were ready to retrace our steps and then go towards Orbetello. We drove slowly along the Diga to look at the extraordinary landscape. What a pity not to be able to stop and admire better the view of the two landfills (Giannella and Feniglia). We had no time but if you want you can park as soon as you enter Orbetello and walk along the Diga. In fact there is a pedestrian lane too.

We had planned to stop at Orbetello, have lunch eating perhaps one of its famous basses and then visiting the second lovely resort of Monte Argentario, that is Porto Ercole. Another possibility was to visit  a WWF oasis in the lagoon but you have to plan accurately its visit because it isn’t open all year. We didn’t know its opening and so we gave up this idea. In summer it is closed!

We weren’t attracted by Orbetello even the guidebooks tell about historical and interesting buildings but comparing Orbetello with Porto Santo Stefano … the comparison doesn’t hold according to our taste!
Besides it was time to have lunch but  we weren’t able to find an open restaurant. So we drove towards Porto Ercole, the other touristic port in Monte Argentario. You need only few minutes to reach this resort and it is very easy to find a restaurant where to eat there.  After eating  delicious  seafood we kept on our trip. Porto Ercole is smaller than Porto Santo Stefano but very nice.

The owner of the restauramt had suggested us to have a look at the landfill of Feniglia. “There are a lot of fantastic beaches there” – he had told us. So we went and see it. The street is short and stops after few kilometers. Locals said there are a lot of paths surrounded by vegetation (pinewood) where people can take long and relaxing walks. The beach was beyond the pinewood. We had no time to explore this fantastic place because we had another aim. To reach Ansedonia and Cosa, south of Orbetello where  it is an interesting Roman remain we wanted to see: la Tagliata etrusca. We found it with difficulty because there aren’t many signs. Ask to locals if you want to see it. But what is Tagliata etrusca? It’s a channel Romans built carving the rock to drain off the water from the lagoon into the sea. Near there is “lo Spacco della Regina”, a narrow rift in the rock 260 m long. You can see better this rift climbing the little stairs on the left. At a certain point there is a little terrace where you can see the rift on the left. Near the rift there is a building.

Well, our trip and our vacation stop here. We like Maremma very much. It is charming. It is a place where a new idea about nature, art, colors and flavors awaits you.

We lost a lot of things: a coach tour with the butteri (more detail on the butteri site ), tours of Etruscan necropolis and acropolis, tours of oasis, visits of museums …

Here are the most important websites you can consult if you are planning a vacation in Maremma.

Municipality of Monte Argentario has a website where you can find a lot of interesting informations to book a room at a hotel, know the departure time for visiting the isles, plan a touristic tour in the promontory …

You can find more information on Orbetello on this page or here

There is a specific website on The Maremma Regional Park

Share with us all your experience if you have already visited Maremma. We’re waiting your comment

Greetings from Italy

Carlo & Loretta

This morning we have decided to leave the coast and follow an itinerary suggested by the Italian Touring Club (TCI): a long route through typical Italian small villages. How beautiful they are and how many historical buildings they have! They are worth seeing!
Leaving Grosseto we have taken the main road known as 322 (the road of Colli di Maremma Wine) that runs through the municipalities of Scansano, Montemerano, Manciano, Pitigliano, Sorano, Sovana e Saturnia. This can also be a gastronomic tour.
It’s a very beautiful road, often surrounded by vegetation, sometimes with sharp U-bends and farmlands that are worth seeing. Yellow cornfields just reaped, endless vineyards, olive groves with young or ancient plants. All that combined with cypresses, oleanders and prickly pears …
Gentle hills intensively cultivated, a lot of farms (in Tuscan “poderi”),  bed and breakfast too.
Carlo and I have asked ourselves how all these bed and breakfast could work. We have found a first  answer as soon as we have reached  the first small village: Scansano.
But what Scansano? the town of Morellino wine? sure, that’s the center where Morellino di Scansano is produced.
This small village has few historical buildings, it’s nice but its importance is due to its wine famous all over the world. If you want you can visit its Archaeological Museum and its Museum dedicated to the Grapes and Wines. It’s rich in little shops where typical products are sold: wines, honey, pasta .. We have seen a bottle of Sassicaia for 100.00 €. Gulp!
Instead of visiting Scansano we have preferred to continue on our way. Our aim? visiting Pitigliano and Sorano and reaching Saturnia. We must soon tell you it isn’t enough a day to visit all these fantastic places. Here it is the answer we were finding for: “bed and breakfast” house a lot of people that spend at least a week end in the Grosseto hinterland. But a day has been enough to let us decide to go again the next spring and know better this fantastic area.
Pitigliano appears unexpectedly, after a bend, … a breathtaking sight! The hamlet is completely hewn out in the tufa rock and leans out over a precipice.
We’ve parked outside the historical center that is inside the walls. The historical center is little but rich in memories included the Jewish ghetto. Dur to this Pitigliano was known as “Little Jerusalem” in the past. We’ve entered the historical center through a gate in the walls. On the left there is an impressive waterworks built in different times. Further on, on the right,  there is Orsini Palace (Palazzo Orsini). You have to know opening and closing to visit its Museum (obviously different from the hour in which we have been there!). Plan accurately your visit to Pitigliano. Here you can find more details about Jewish ghetto and here some detail on Pitigliano history. In the website Parco degli Etruschi (in English Etruscan park) you can read more detail on opening and closing to visit better Pitigliano and its  memories.
We’ve contented to visit the courtyard of Orsini Palace (its museum was closed), walk down Via Roma looking at its nice little shops full of Italian and Tuscan food., visit the Cathedral and looking at fantastic landscape of Meleta valley below.
At two o’clock we’ve had lunch in a nice restaurant. We’ll tell you about this restaurant in another post. For the high number of tourists we’ve had to wait for a table. We’ve tasted some specialties due to life in common of Jews and Christians. At three o’clock when we’ve finished eating it was too late to visit the Jewish ghetto. What a pity! We’ll return in spring, certainly!
The following small village we’ve seen is Sorano. We arrived at its fortress (Orsini Castle) through the road for S. Quirico and so we’ve lost its fantastic view. We suggest to arrive in its historical center  below to be able to see the fortress from the bottom upwards. It’s better! But locals suggest to reach S. Rocco (a little chapel on the SP 22, two kilometers before Sorano) situated in a large natural terrace with a panoramic view,  surrounded by vegetation,  from which it is possible to admire the medieval small village of Sorano delimited from deep throats and Orsini Castle.  Obviously we have known that after arriving …
Inquire very well about the opening and closing for visiting the Sorano fortress with a guide. It’s better. With few euros you can walk down its communications trenches (underground walks of the 16th century castle). A fantastic experience!
We’ve struck by the view of Sasso leopoldino or Masso leopoldino,  an enormous tuffaceous rock that was flattened and a tower was built upon it. We’ve seen it from the castle. Another pearl of fantastic beauty in this small village. The little village of Sorana is built around this Masso leopoldino. In the west the famous tower-houses high up above the valley and in the east a series of houses on the sides of narrow winding streets that go down to the valley.
We haven’t been able to see all that Sorano offers. Too short time! Saturnia has been waiting for us at 30 kilometers. But driving along 30 kilometers of winding roads means at least 30 minutes and it was late. And then … we’ve left Sorano in a hurry  to our great disappointment not to have seen all that we wanted. Too short time and too many things to visit and to see. To the next spring, Sorano! Bye-bye.
The last stop: Saturnia. Practically we haven’t seen anything. Its thermal baths are enclosed, you must pay for entering. It was half past five … closing was near. We have made a great mistake! We were to reach Saturnia early in the morning, have a bathe and then beginning the tour. Never mind! We’ll return, Saturnia. But we have been able to make a beautiful photo to show you: look at the little, nice falls of Saturnia. A lot of people  having enough time go there to have an healthy bathe as you can see.
But what are the baths of Saturnia? They’re a prestigious spa. The establishment is constructed on the top of the stream of sulphurous water which originates at a depth of 200 meters at a temperature of 37°C. To know more detail about the baths of Saturnia consult its website in English.
Well, we hope our travel notes come useful if you’re planning a journey in Italy, our wonderful Italy.
Visit Grosseto, its coast and hinterland. They’re fantastic!
Post your comment or opinion if you visited this area in the past. It’s important to share all our experiences!

Greetings from Italy

Carlo & Loretta

A friend of us had recommended to visit the Gulf of Baratti near Piombino on the Tuscan coast.

“You  can’t but have a bath  in the sea of Baratti, a stop in its pinewood, a visit to Populonia’s Etruscan necropolis”

So this morning we have driven to Baratti. There are about 90 km between Principina a Mare and Baratti. Never mind if the place is really worth seeing.
We have woken up early in the morning and left the province of Grosseto. We’ve  left Castiglione della Pescaia, Punta Ala, Follonica behind us and followed the Tuscan coast until the road sign for Baratti near Piombino (province of Livorno).
We have turned in a long and narrow street surrounded by pines.
We have parked easily because it is a working day (take with you a lot of coins – parking costs 1.60 € per hour) and tried to reach the beach.
At the beginning we have been lost. We haven’t been able to see the beach as it is below the walking area and so understand if all the beach is free.
After walking down through one of the many sandy paths we have noticed two very little bathhouses. All the remaining beach is free. We have hired a beach umbrella and two deckchairs (20.00 € per day) for we have nothing with us.
Behind us there was a fantastic pinewood. We have walked through it to reach the public baths. Many people are used to spend the time under the pines. They carry blankets, little chairs, snacks , books …. in other words they’re well equipped and, first of all, pay nothing to spend a fantastic day! Bear it in your mind!
Another thing has struck us today: how many foreigners know Baratti!
Drinking a coffee at a bar table we have been sourrrounded by Germans, Norvegians, Danes … a lot of foreigners and few Italians!
What about the gulf? the sea? Fantastic! Shallow water. Very clean sea-water  for the sand is coarse. Besides it has  a few small black crystals that is evidence of iron working in the past. The iron was extracted in the Elba isle and then worked here.
We have spent some hours of absolute peace despite the people. We have had a fantastic and long bathe too! We suggest you this trip. Really!
The morning has remembered us how many times we made the same thing in Sardinia in the past. Every morning we were leaving in search of new beaches where the nature is the winner. Baratti is beautiful and quiet exactly for this: the nature is the winner! Very few bathhouses, no loadspeaker, no music … but at the same time there is the bathing attendant, public baths and bar where to buy something drinking and eating if you want.

Early in the afternoon we have left this enchanting place for another dive … into the culture! Next to Baratti there is Populonia. It was an important Etruscan town that won fame in the 5th century B.C.  Unfortunately the following historical events  caused its decline thanks to Romans (especially the fight between Marcus and Silla). It won fame again in the XIVth century when Gherardo Appiani built the castle.
Nowadays you can visit a lot of place in Populonia.
At first there is the Archaeological Park of Baratti and Populonia that is between the promontory of Piombino and Baratti gulf, near the sea. Here there are San Cerbone and Casone necropolis and other important Etruscan ruins. The tumbs and ruins belong to the 7th century (orientalizing period),  6th century B.C. (archaic period) and 4th to 2nd century (ellenistic period). Look at this site to know the opening and closing of the Archaeological Park of Baratti and Populonia.

Reaching the western side of the promontory you can visit another necropolis: la buca delle fate (you could translate it in “fairies’ hole”). The tumbs belong to the 3rd or 2nd century B.C.

All that is fantastic and very interesting but we have had little time this afternoon and  decided to visit these necropolis in the next spring. So we have entered the medieval town of Populonia that is very interesting too.
We have paid the ticket to enter “the tower” (only 2.00 € per person). The tower (the keep) is the element that dominates all the complex known as fortress. The tower has a rectangular plan and was the primitive medieval keep.
Visiting the tower we have noticed the stones used for this building  are not perfectly squared, except the angles. Someone had told us these stones were Etruscan remains. Very interesting its machicoulis that is opening between the corbels of the parapet through which the defenders may drop rocks or fire projectiles against the enemies … Imagine visiting the keep with your kids and telling you all this set in the past even remembering them a film seen together …And then big battlements, three on the short side and four on the long sides.

Enclosure walls were built in the XIVth century around this keep. They have a square plan very near to be rectangular. They are characterized by a watch walk alternated by vertical loopholes toward the outside. External garrittes are present to the four angles .

Somebody of you is thinking this fortress had other functions besides the purely military functions?

We suggest to walk through the little streets of the medieval town. They are rich of shops with local and national products. You can buy the typical wines of Tuscany, pasta known as pici, honey, spelt food, cakes, no-salt loaf (to make our fantastic panzanella)
Well.

Does someone of you that visited Baratti and Populonia want to add anything else? We’re waiting for your comments.

Greetings from Italy

Carlo & Loretta