Maremma: cypresses, hot springs and tuff towns

Route description

Leave the Aurelia at San Guido and drive the five-kilometre cypress avenue to the village of Bolgheri, heart of a famous red-wine area. Continue south to the Gulf of Baratti, where Etruscan tombs lie among the pines behind the beach and the walled hamlet of Populonia watches from above.

Head inland to Massa Marittima, an old mining town with a Romanesque cathedral on a sloping piazza, then return to the SS1 Aurelia (E80), a dual carriageway, towards Grosseto. At Alberese, the Maremma Regional Park protects wild coast and hills; in summer part of it is reached only by park bus.

From Grosseto roads cross the rolling countryside to Saturnia, where the hot water of the Cascate del Mulino pours over travertine terraces. It is free and open at all hours, but very busy on summer weekends.

The last stretch reaches the tuff country: Sovana with its Etruscan tombs and the deep sunken roads called vie cave, then Pitigliano, built on the edge of a cliff. The area is quiet in spring and autumn, and motorhome parking areas are common in the towns.