By V. E. K. Madhushani, Jadetimes News
A Hidden Treasure Emerges in Tuscany
Despite the global fascination with Tuscany as a premier holiday destination, Grosseto seemed to have been left off the tourist map. However, this city is now demonstrating to Italy how tourism can be redefined.
When I first ventured to the city of Grosseto in early spring, it was a part of Tuscany I'd neither visited nor heard of, despite having lived in Italy for five years. While Florence and Siena, just an hour away, attract throngs of tourists, Grosseto with its historical city center, wild nature reserves, and nearby beaches remained relatively undiscovered, even among Italians.
Yet, this once overlooked Tuscan city now finds itself in the spotlight as the 2024 European Green Pioneer of Smart Tourism. Selected ahead of 40 cities, this European Commission award recognizes small, emerging destinations that excel in sustainable tourism. The aim is to create a network of destinations sharing best practices for responsible tourism, serving as models for other European cities and towns.
"Grosseto's success as a Green Pioneer of Smart Tourism is the result of many years of efforts focused on enhancing our natural and cultural heritage," said Antonfrancesco Vivarelli Colonna, Mayor of Grosseto. "This is just the beginning of our journey towards a greener and more sustainable future for Grosseto."
As the first Italian city to win the award, Grosseto aspires to be a beacon of responsible tourism in a country that tops many travelers' bucket lists. While popular destinations like Venice, Positano, and Cinque Terre struggle with overwhelming tourist numbers, Grosseto's initiatives show how alternative Italian destinations can encourage more responsible travel and attract visitors seeking a slower, more meaningful travel experience.
Grosseto's historical city center, enclosed by remarkably intact medieval walls and filled with centuries old buildings, is as visually rich and evocative as any Italian "centro." However, the city's natural attractions truly set it apart. Driving just a few kilometers west from the center, I soon found myself immersed in the vast, 9,000 hectare expanse of the Regional Park of Maremma, stretching from the Uccellina mountains to the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Here, pine trees and wheat fields give way to flat, dusty plains populated by wild horses and native horned Maremma cows, resembling the African savannah more than the Tuscan countryside. Long stretches of natural sandy beaches, scattered with driftwood, frame the park from the west.
When to Go and What to Do:
Getting there: Driving is recommended, with ample parking available just outside the city center and at most agriturismi. Once there, consider renting a bike or e bike, especially in summer when visitor numbers surge. Bike rentals are available from Bicialand, the Albarese Visitor Centre, or through your agriturismo.
Where to eat: Sample local produce at Il Melograno di Banditella, Il Duchesco, and Posto Pubblico in and around the Regional Park of Maremma. In the city center, cafe Essenza Love Natural Food serves modern vegan food using local ingredients.
Where to stay: Book a sustainable agriturismo farm stay Tenuta San Carlo offers modern, eco friendly accommodation a short walk or bike ride from the beach. A full list of sustainable agriturismi can be found here.
When to go: Visit from April to October to take advantage of Grosseto's many outdoor activities; beachgoers should plan for July to September.
The preservation of the Regional Park of Maremma is at the heart of Grosseto's sustainability efforts, as is its focus on numerous slow agritourism endeavors. Unlike Tuscan tourist hotspots like Florence and the Chianti wine region, Grosseto is one of Italy's least densely populated provinces. The park offers varied pristine landscapes from forests to dusty plains to wetlands and coastal areas and is home to more than 250 species of birds, plus badgers, porcupines, wolves, wild boar, and deer, some of which are rare or endangered.
However, this land wasn't always welcoming to visitors. For centuries, this zone within the greater Maremma area was a swampy marshland infested with malaria carrying mosquitoes. In the 1930s, Mussolini launched the bonifica integrale reclamation project, aimed at restoring Italy's marshy areas to make them arable and encouraging Italians to purchase plots and establish agricultural businesses.
Today, 30% of the Regional Park of Maremma is dedicated to agriculture, the foundation for the park's 32 agriturismi (B&B-style accommodations on working farms). These establishments must meet certain environmental standards, such as using recycled and eco friendly materials, adopting energy and water saving practices, and appointing an in house environment manager. I spent a peaceful night at the sprawling estate of Tenuta San Carlo, surrounded by towering pine trees, saltwater marshes perfect for growing rice, and paddocks of striking Maremma cows with their long, curved horns.
Gifted a box of the agriturismo's organic rice grown right outside my doorstep, I made a simple risotto in the apartment kitchen for dinner, savoring my first taste of local produce. The tenuta also cultivates organic heirloom wheat, legumes, chickpeas, alfalfa, clover, flax, and oats, offering cooking classes and agriculture focused tours.
In the morning, I took a guided tour around the estate with Ariane Lotti, the fourth generation owner, who has a background in environmental land management. According to Lotti, whose great grandfather first purchased the land for Tenuta San Carlo in 1936, "It's a good way to diversify income and save the rural landscape because you're also renovating and repurposing older farmhouses. I spend a lot of time giving tours, explaining to people how rice grows, hosting them. It's a really important part of reconnecting people with the land and food production."
Borrowing a bike from the agriturismo, I rode through pine tree shaded paths down to a wild, secluded stretch of beach. Unlike the often overdeveloped Italian seaside resorts and beach clubs, with their rows of plastic beach chairs and blaring music, here the only structures were improvised driftwood forts providing refuge from the sun; the only sound was the gentle lull of waves. The unspoiled natural beaches, combined with lush Mediterranean vegetation, soft sand dunes, and clear waters, offer a different kind of Italian beach holiday.
The park and its surroundings are also known for their many small food producers offering gastronomic tours and specialty dishes. Visitors can spend days here sampling local cheeses, wine, honey, olive oil, beer, fresh fruit, vegetables, and pasta. I headed to cheesemakers Caseificio Inno al Sole, where I tasted soft white knots of buffalo mozzarella made fresh that morning, with buffalos just behind the shop.
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There are many low footprint ways to explore the park, from guided walking and bike tours to canoe trips along the Ombrone River and horseback rides, all cataloged in the park's extensive online guide designed to help visitors discover the park authentically and responsibly. For people with disabilities, there are also accessible itineraries and the Mare per Tutti ("Beach for Everyone") fully accessible beach program, another initiative that helped Grosseto win the sustainable tourism award. I chose the most leisurely pursuit possible: a horse drawn carriage tour with Carrozze di Maremma, sitting up front alongside founder Enrico Cheli, who personally guides the carriages. Aboard the old style coach, Cheli took us past vast, flat plains of windmills, horses, and Maremmana cows, through scrubby paths and wild forests into the park's depths, sharing stories about the butteri (cowboys) of Maremma, who hold cultural significance in this part of Tuscany and still work in the park today.
"The butteri tradition started during the reign of Grand Duke Leopold II of Lorraine, who began improving these parts in the 1800s," said Cheli, a horse enthusiast from a young age. "He transformed it into plains ideal for raising animals." The skilled cowboys took over, herding horses and cattle, always astride a horse, and continuing to maintain the ecological balance of the natural and agricultural land.
For more active travelers, the park's flat plains are perfect for cyclists of all levels, with many easy cycle paths, including those with direct access to the beaches. Other bike tracks are designed for more experienced cyclists, such as the route climbing to the stunning 13th century Abbey of San Rabano high on a hill.
Plentiful bike paths also connect the park and beaches to the city center and local attractions like the Etruscan archaeological site Roselle, once the main city in the area, where you can explore the ruins of the ancient town's amphitheater and Roman forum, among various public buildings, temples, and baths. The cycling network provides access to the surrounding picturesque hilltop villages too, with the number of paths set to grow. The city is working to light cycle paths from the center to the sea with solar powered streetlights, encouraging more cycling to and from the beach in summer and reducing high season parking issues.
I decided to cycle into the city center for sunset, taking in Grosseto's grand Piazza Dante, where elderly locals conversed on stone benches. The ornate Palazzo Aldobrandeschi, a neo Gothic style palace reminiscent of nearby Siena's medieval architecture, provided a beautiful backdrop. I stopped at the marble covered Cathedral of Grosseto and the Maremma Archaeology and Art Museum, full of important Etruscan artifacts
