Tuscany’s Coastline is Italy’s Best-Kept Secret

What picture springs to mind when you hear the word Tuscany? I’m going to take a gamble that it involves at least one of the following: A country villa or trattoria. Vineyards or olive groves and the liquids they produce. Cypress trees marching in single file up the side of a hill. Michelangelo’s David. 

Cocktails on the beach? Not so much.

Running up the thigh of Italy for about 250 miles, the Tuscan coast seems to somehow float free of its mother region—and the associations it evokes. As if lazy days on a boat and spaghetti with clams were somehow un-Tuscan. It doesn’t help that some of the area’s beach resorts don’t exactly ooze local character. Forte dei Marmi is a seaside village that was turned into a Tuscan Hamptons by well-heeled Florentines (who call it “Forte”). Viareggio, one of the first towns in Italy to service the fashion for sea bathing in the 19th century, is today a family resort living on Belle Époque memories.

But one part of Tuscany-by-the-Sea is still profoundly Tuscan and still manages to embrace the newcomers without selling its soul. This happening place doesn’t have a single name, or a single identity. Situated at the southernmost end of the region’s coastline, it’s made up of three adjacent areas. Each has its own habitués, its own charm, its own scene: Giglio Island; the Monte Argentario peninsula; and a long stretch of beach, dune, and rural hinterland that centers on a cute hill town called Capalbio. 

When Mediterranean villa rental specialist Huw Beaugié of the Thinking Traveller visited Argentario and Capalbio on a reconnaissance trip in the spring of 2023, he was impressed. Not just by the houses, but by the people who were heading there and the sense that this was a destination that is “at the beginning of something,” he told me. “It felt very much like Puglia in 2009.”

The inland part of this stretch, known as La Maremma, was once a marshy swamp where malaria was rife and butteri—Tuscan cowboys—wrangled herds of long-horned cattle. The marshes were drained, in stages, between 1829 and the 1950s, but this remained a remote, sparsely populated place of scattered villages, boar hunting, and driftwood beaches. A wild, rocky peninsula with hardly any sandy beaches and plenty of rutted gravel roads, Argentario was frequented mostly by yacht owners and mountain bikers. As for Giglio, the threat of pirate raids caused its inhabitants to turn away from the sea for centuries, taking refuge in the fortified town high in the island’s center. When tourists began to arrive in the 1950s and 60s, they were overwhelmingly Italian.

True, Argentario’s legendary Il Pellicano hotel, founded in 1965 by a dashing British aviator and his American wife, has always attracted a sophisticated global clientele. But this delightful retreat, with its seaside country club feel, is very much a destination resort: most guests go there to be at Il Pellicano, not to tour the area. Another forerunner of today’s scene is Ansedonia, a hillside community of upscale homes near Capalbio that in the 1960s became popular with creative types from the Italian capital.

Both Ansedonia and Il Pellicano are essentially luxury enclaves. There’s still plenty of mileage in that style of vacation. But the burgeoning southern Tuscan seaside scene is more open and permeable. It’s piloted, at least in part, by a new breed of curious visitors who have no desire to be confined to a gated resort or villa.

Exploring Monte Argentario

Peter Pan’s Neverland was translated as l’isola che non c’è in the Italian version of the children’s classic—literally “the island that isn’t.” That’s a pretty good description of Monte Argentario, which behaves like an island in every respect, and probably was one thousands of years ago, before it became tethered to the Tuscan mainland by two sandy isthmuses.

When I first visited, in the mid 1980s, Susanna Agnelli had just finished a 10-year stint as the almost-island’s mayor (the Agnellis, who founded the Fiat company, are the equivalent of a royal family in Italy). But despite this tony stamp of approval, Argentario was, outside of one small marina, still a place of adventure. I remember wild scrambles down to rocky coves, where my wife and I would unwrap a picnic assembled from an alimentari (grocery). 

From 1557 to 1707, this corner of Tuscany was a Spanish garrison. It was Orbetello that benefited most from the Iberian touch. Surrounded and protected by the lagoon that separates Argentario from the mainland, this amiable town feels like Madrid’s little Tuscan twin, with its sunny disposition, well developed café culture, and houses in every shade of ocher.

Argentario itself, however, was in those years a place of forts and garrisons, with a small civilian population concentrated in two small harbor towns, Porto Ercole and Porto Santo Stefano. The rest was mostly left to the goats. If this is Tuscany’s Amalfi Coast, it’s still in some respects the Amalfi Coast of its pioneer years. Even today, it’s impossible to complete the coastal loop of the peninsula in a car without driving some of the way on a narrow gravel road.

With its marinas, waterfront bars and restaurants, and high cashmere sweater count, Porto Ercole doesn’t make much of a living from fishing anymore (salty Porto Santo Stefano, on the other side of the peninsula, has a greater claim to that). But neither is it—like pretty Portofino, on the Ligurian coast—one of those places where the Milanese ultrarich go to play at being fisherfolk. Instead of a row of cookie-cutter high-end fashion boutiques, you’ll find scuba diving centers, gelaterie, and an unusual tourist attraction: La Grotta dei Pirati, a cave where Porto Ercole celebrates a big fiesta, La Notte dei Pirati, in May. Pretty much the entire town goes full Jack Sparrow, dressing up in pirate costumes and waving wooden swords to commemorate and exorcise the trauma of a time when attacks by the formidable Hayreddin Barbarossa, a.k.a. Redbeard, and his colleagues were a real and present danger.

It was this sense of community—combined with the obvious scenic charms—that first attracted the family of Swedish entrepreneur Conni Jonsson to the area. After summering in Porto Ercole for several years, Jonsson bought the town’s disused Cirio sardine-canning factory in 2017. An industrial relic, it is being reimagined as a resort with a focus on wellness and culinary excellence. It’s not due to be finished for several years, but Jonsson’s second Porto Ercole investment has had a much faster route to completion. A modest hotel overlooking the harbor—the kind of place locals would go to for weddings and christenings—was reopened in August 2023 as La Roqqa following a top-to-toe overhaul. 

La Roqqa does something new for Monte Argentario. It’s very much a hotel, not a resort, one with a surprisingly urban feel—and it’s embedded in a lively community. I walked down to Alicina sul Porto, a place by the port where the seafood is fresh and good and the waitstaff dodge Vespas as they bring plates of garlicky spaghetti with chili-spiced totani (flying squid) across the road to the waterside terrace. Those staying in town, or sleeping on yachts moored in the marina, now just as often head in the other direction for aperitifs or dinner at Scirocco, La Roqqa’s classy, scenic rooftop bar-restaurant, which seems, gratifyingly, to be more interested in serving up tasty, beautifully presented farm-to-table (or boat-to-table) Tuscan cuisine than in pursuing a Michelin star.

Rooms at La Roqqa are simple, their minimalism tempered by warm natural materials and a range of shades that recall clay, cornfields, beach, and sky. The opulence comes from the sea view enjoyed by more than half of the 55 rooms. The others look onto a vertical garden wall or above it to the slopes of a mountain crowned by a Spanish-era fort. But that is hardly a sacrifice. Barring rare bad weather, you’re likely to spend most of the day at the hotel’s Isolotto Beach Club, an appetite-building walk or five-minute shuttle ride away. (The Jonsson family’s Italian hospitality company, Miramis, also owns Torre di Cala Piccola, a cliffside resort on the peninsula’s western coast that already had a loyal multigenerational clientele and Argentario’s best sunset views.) 

Lying on a sun lounger at Isolotto, sipping a Hugo Spritz while taking in a wild view of sea, rocks, spiky shrubs, and the uninhabited islet that gives the beach club its name, I realized that it’s difficult to find this level of barefoot chic in Italy outside of, say, Capri or the Aeolians. But that’s Argentario for you—the island that isn’t, but kind of is.

Next Stop: Giglio Island

On Giglio Island, the wave-smoothed rocks look from a distance like sea mammals petrified while tumbling over one another to get to the water. Aptly, there is basking there in summer—by intrepid human sunbathers, who drape themselves over these unforgiving boulders nonchalantly, as if they were feather beds. Above the tidal zone begins a maquis of mastic, myrtle, helichrysum, arbutus, and other fragrant, hardy plants, which in the higher, more remote parts of the island give way to groves of ilex, eucalyptus, and stone pine.

For many centuries, life here was as tough as the granite rocks and prickly as the vegetation. In 1544, Barbarossa, a corsair who had risen to become admiral of the Ottoman navy, raided the island and carried away into slavery almost a thousand inhabitants—practically the island’s entire population. For centuries, the only fortified settlement was Giglio Castello, a town built on a high ridge with good views of invading ships. Seen from below on a day of lowering clouds, the town can still seem a forbidding place, though inside the gates, floral window boxes and the lines of laundry that stretch across narrow lanes like festive banners lighten the fortress mood. 

But for life, bustle, color, and a good selection of places to eat and drink, you’ll want the seafront town of Giglio Porto, where the ferry from Porto Santo Stefano, on Monte Argentario, docks after a one-hour crossing. On disembarking, a five-minute trolley trundle along the harbor past gelaterie, swimwear boutiques, wine bars, and pizzerias leads to La Guardia, a previously modest hotel that has become Giglio’s new style magnet. It was acquired in 2018 by a couple from the world of advertising, Flaminia Pérez del Castillo and Flavio Caprabianca, who transformed this local landmark into a welcoming 29-room refuge.

Caprabianca’s design scheme, dominated by materials like weathered wood, rope, and cork, has given the light and airy rooms a beachcomber soul. The couple also drafted the chef of their favorite Roman restaurant to create a menu that adds fresh twists to Mediterranean classics like gazpacho (theirs comes with anchovies, pickled onions, olives, and toasted almonds). 

For more than two years, beginning in January 2012, the seaward view from the hotel terrace was dominated by the wreck of the Costa Concordia, the cruise ship that ran aground when its captain bungled a sail-by salute and ended up on a submerged reef, resulting in the death of 32 passengers and crew. The Gigliesi, as the island’s inhabitants are known, so distinguished themselves in the generosity they extended to survivors that they were collectively awarded a medal for civic merit by the Italian president. Giglio’s growing reputation feels like a well-earned turnaround after a setback that was just the latest in its hardscrabble history.

And so to the lighthouse. These days, true luxury is as much about being given the chance to escape and kick back in remarkable surroundings as it is about silk sheets and champagne. On Giglio’s wild southernmost headland, Faro Capel Rosso defines the new trend, especially when you factor in the challenge of getting there. Picked up in a battered Fiat in Giglio Castello by the genial Luigi Baffigi, who manned and maintained the lighthouse and its lamps for 37 years before the system was automated in 2012, my wife and I were driven along a potholed road past ancient buildings called palmenti. Resembling ruined chapels, these were used for wine making, once the bedrock of Giglio’s economy.

Where the road gave up in disgust, Baffigi shouldered my wife’s rucksack and led us down a rocky path. We were so intent on not slipping on the loose stones that, when we finally had the leisure to look up, the lighthouse was right there, with its red-and-white horizontal candy stripes, as if the exterior design scheme had been entrusted to a bunch of four-year-olds.

Inside, all is breezy and marine. The jaunty billiard room, with its nautical décor, sets the playful tone for what has become a four-bedroom retreat that cries out for a group of family or friends, though it also functions on a by-room basis. Given the remote location, breakfast and dinner are included in the nightly rate. Both were prepared by Saverio Cristiano, a serious, passionate islander who sources most of what he serves locally. (A fisherman had brought him a basket of lobsters the morning we arrived, so it was lobster for dinner, accompanied by vegetables and herbs from Cristiano’s garden.)

There’s no pool, but paths below the lighthouse descend to two swimming coves, one of which is pretty much guaranteed to be sheltered from the prevailing wind (the easterly cove also has a small landing area that allows for arrival by boat, weather permitting). You can bask in the sun or stargaze on the roof below the lighthouse’s revolving lantern, or head back up that rocky access path for a wine tasting at Fontuccia, one of a few enterprising producers that have begun to replant the island’s traditional Ansonica vines.

In one of these spots, you may well meet one of the three Mura sisters, whose family make ophthalmic instruments near Florence. They won the right to run hospitality in the lighthouse until 2036 in an Italian state auction, which they entered, according to Veronica Mura, “in the spirit of a mad gamble.” That spirit still pervades a place of rare enchantment, where guests are made to feel like part of an extended family. 

Exploring Capalbio

The train that chugs along the coast from Rome to Capalbio is a slow but steady release from the Eternal City’s historical weight and intense urban energy. First, after a brief glimpse of St. Peter’s dome, come the postwar suburbs, the factories, the car showrooms. Sprawling dormitory resorts like Fregene and Ladispoli are up next: seaside cities that double as Rome’s seaside. There’s some relief, some empty space, as you press on north past Tarquinia, but not until the train crosses the border with Tuscany does peace descend.

The train passes a long stretch of dunes, fields dotted with grazing cattle, and a lake that, if the avian gods are smiling, may host a blush of flamingoes. In the distance is the great mass of Monte Argentario, lambent by morning, dramatically backlit at sunset. Seeing the sign capalbio, you descend at one of those cute rural train stations made even cuter thanks to the rather good bar-trattoria it conceals.

Back in the day, when my wife and I lived in Rome, we would take our bikes off the train at Capalbio and cycle back along the narrow road that runs parallel with the railway. Every quarter-mile along the road, regular as clockwork, stood a pretty white house surrounded by a patch of garden. Each had an alfresco dining area and a view over the Lago di Burano Nature Reserve wetlands to the line of dunes that separates this coastal idyll from the beach. Maybe one day, we told ourselves.

Thirty years later, I was sitting in the shade of an ancient mulberry tree in the garden of one of those houses, which is on the Terre di Sacra estate. I was speaking with brothers Uberto and Niccolò Resta Pallavicino, who are part owners. In 1919, their grandfather fell in love at first sight with this wild coastal prairie when a train he was traveling on broke down. Three years later, he and a bunch of investors from Milan and Turin founded Terre di Sacra. Though much reduced by the forced expropriation that accompanied the end of Italy’s feudal system in the 1950s, the estate was still left with a big chunk of land that stretches for seven miles along the coast and includes 22 of those desirable white houses, originally built to house sharecropper families.

In the early 1950s, Uberto told me, few understood the decision of grandpa and his fellow shareholders to hang onto the agriculturally poorer coastal strip when the estate was decimated by the Italian government’s land-reform bill. “Today,” he said, “everyone can see how farsighted it was.”

The guest accommodations currently available at Terre di Sacra include weekly rentals of the houses, some of which have pools or private access to the beach; a smart glamping area with a mix of tented and wooden lodges; and what is left of the simpler campsite that was established in the 1960s. A restaurant and beach club, La Dogana by Enoteca La Torre, have been built in the dunes, and La Macchia—another club, this one members-only—is housed in a 16th-century farmhouse and watchtower.

La Macchia’s members consist of some of northern Italy’s wealthiest families. But far from being a playground for the ultra-rich, Terre di Sacra feels like a love story. As far back as 1968, the estate ceded management of just over a thousand acres of its land, including the Lago di Burano saltwater lagoon, to the Italian branch of the World Wildlife Fund. The organization hosts visits to this important wetland reserve, which is home to more than 270 different bird species. It has also restored almost all of the historic properties on the estate and several miles of drystone walls; built long hedges to prevent wind erosion; and converted to organic agriculture. It gets 84 percent of its energy from renewable sources. “This isn’t a fashion destination,” said Uberto as we watched the sun set over Argentario. “It’s a place of the soul.” 

A version of this story first appeared in the May 2025 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline “Tuscany By the Sea.”