Villa rentals on the Tuscany Coast & Maremma
Renting a villa near the Tuscany coast and Maremma gives you a unique perspective on this region. Its secluded sandy beaches rank among Italy’s best. Seafood usurps salami from top-billing in many celebrated restaurants.
Inland, in the hills of the Maremma, wild boar roam dense chestnut and oak woodland, occasionally emerging from the trees to cross deserted backroads. As well as scenic hill-towns and olive groves, you’ll discover vineyards producing red and white wines you don’t find back home.
This is why the Tuscany coast and Maremma — still “undiscovered” by many Europeans and North Americans — are popular with Italian vacationers in the know. Come here and you will get a genuinely local angle on your Tuscany holiday.
At Tuscany Now & More, we have 30 years’ experience matching guests to their perfect villa. Someone from our small team visits or stays in every villa we list and knows the Tuscany coast and Maremma area — this is why we keep our portfolio small. (And probably why the world’s leading luxury travel magazine says we’re Tuscany’s best villa company.)
All our villas on the Tuscany coast have air-conditioned bedrooms — which you’ll appreciate in the warm summer months — and a few have air-conditioning throughout. Every Tuscany Now & More villa has a private swimming pool, free use of our concierge service, for pre-trip arrangements and an emergency number available 24/7 while you are in-destination. Your concierge can arrange a private chef, daily maid service, or shopping delivered to your villa, and memorable experiences like Tuscan cookery classes in your holiday rental’s kitchen.
To see what real travellers think of our service — and the experience of staying in a Tuscany Now & More luxury villa — read our verified reviews.
About the Tuscany Coast & Maremma
Tuscany’s 250 miles of coastline stretches from flat, family-friendly sands and fashionable resorts in the north, to the rocky shores, remote dunes and fishing ports of Monte Argentario and the southern Maremma — “Tuscany for the cognoscenti”, The Guardian has called it.
Pre-Roman Etruscan heritage is preserved in the landscapes, museums and tombs of the Maremma, including at a UNESCO World Heritage Site near Tarquinia, in the neighbouring Lazio region. Newly upgraded roads make for straightforward daytrips inland to Siena, for the sights of the Campo, and medieval Volterra.
All of these — and many more fascinating places, first-rate wineries and spectacular panoramas — are within easy range of our luxury villas near the Tuscany Coast.
What to Do Near the Tuscany Coast & Maremma
Art and architecture; gourmet food and wine; the stone streets and scenic lookouts of a hilltop town — these are the mainstays of any itinerary when you are at one of our luxury villas in Tuscany. Staying near the Tuscany coast and Maremma adds something extra to the mix: many of Tuscany’s best beaches.
Among the favourite beaches close to our coastal villas is the Tombolo di Feniglia. These 7km (4-mile) south-facing sands occupy a narrow strip of protected land connecting Porto Ercole and the Monte Argentario peninsula with Ansedonia. Here you can relax in the shade of the Maremma’s typical parasol pines and holm oaks. Behind the dunes, the Orbetello saltwater lagoon is a popular birdwatching spot, especially when migratory flamingos arrive each winter.
Perhaps the most famous of all Tuscany beaches, Cala Violina has transparent, turquoise waters and a feeling of total wilderness. The beach is within the Bandite di Scarlino nature reserve and enclosed by forest. Cala Violina is great for families, with shallow water and plenty of trees.
The Maremma is also natural spa country. At Saturnia, 800 litres of 37°C (99 F) water gurgle to the surface every second. You can soak outdoors in thermal waters at the Cascate del Mulino. At a photogenic spot beside an old mill, a waterfall tumbles into shallow, cobalt-blue pools.
The Tuscany Coast and Maremma region has a long history of human settlement. In the craggy hill-town of Pitigliano, centuries of Jewish heritage are preserved at La Piccola Gerusalemme, a living exhibition within the old ghetto. Remains include a ritual bath and kosher bakery cut from the volcanic bedrock which supports Pitigliano.
Outside town are the vie cave, sunken pathways cut in ancient times. Some are up to 20 metres deep, but just a few paces wide. Debate rages about what the Etruscans used them for — religious processions, drainage, moving livestock? You can walk along most impressive, the Via Cava di San Giuseppe, from the roadside.
Closer to the Tuscany coast, ramparts built by Medici Grand Dukes in the 1500s surround the old centre of Grosseto. Porto Ercole has Spanish coastal forts, and is the jumping-off point for scenic, rugged coastal hiking. Scansano served for centuries as the Maremma’s summer capital. Timeworn palaces from the 15th and 16th centuries line pretty, cobbled streets.
The Maremma is also the perfect base for exploring Tuscany’s most important archaeological sites. Roaming around Roselle, north-east of Grosseto, you can make out original Etruscan walls, brick houses from 7 centuries BC and a Roman amphitheatre, built after the Romans conquered in 294 BC.
Vetulonia, north-west of Grosseto, is another former Etruscan town. The museum has finds from Etruscan and Villanovan cultures. Ancient Vetulonia lies just outside the modern village, with several tombs in its necropolis.
Just across Tuscany’s southern border at Tarquinia, the Necropolis of Monterozzi-Calvaria has the greatest collection of painted ancient Etruscan tombs in Italy. Of around 200 Etruscan tombs known to be decorated in this way, 140 are in burial grounds on a ridge just outside town. Some perspective: the underground wall art here is around five times as old as the Sistine Chapel.
Food and Drink around the Tuscany Coast & Maremma
Seafood rules, of course. The coast’s best menus ebb and flow to the rhythm of the daily catch.
You will find ingredients like seppie (cuttlefish, whose ink is the key ingredient in riso nero, black risotto); totani (baby squid) and salty bottarga (tuna roe), often shaved onto pasta; and riccio (sea anemone, great with linguine). Menus often feature Mediterranean mackerel; octopus, anchovies and mullet; orata (sea bream) and amberjack, a meaty game fish. At lunch, it’s hard to beat a simple fritto misto, a lightly floured mixed fry of today’s catch). Cacciucco is the iconic seafood dish of Livorno. This spicy soup-stew is little like French bouillabaisse.
Saline, mineral notes in local wine Ansonica Costa dell’Argentario DOC partner seafood perfectly. This special dry white comes from grapes (at least 85% Ansonica) grown on the islands of Elba and Giglio, or on mainland southern Tuscany. Straw-yellow to amber in colour, it is delicate, slightly fruity with tropical, citrus aromas and hints of coastal herbs.
The wine town of Bolgheri is famous worldwide for Super-Tuscan wines like Sassicaia and Ornellaia. The coast and the hills behind it also hide many niche, under-the-radar Tuscan wines. Suvereto DOCG has a growing zone close to this “Super-Tuscan” wine mecca. Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot find ideal terroir. This dry, warm wine is a deep ruby-red colour, with a nose of plums, blueberries and blackberries, plus hints of spices and cedar. Pair it with game including wild boar; roast meats; or a rustic Tuscan salami.
The Maremma’s most famous wine, Morellino di Scansano comes from wild, unspoilt terrain between hills covered in olive groves. Made with a minimum 85% Sangiovese grapes, it is also ruby-red in colour with violet and purple hues. The nose has hints of redcurrant berries, wild cherries, Mediterranean herbs and even liquorice. It, too, makes a perfect partner for wild boar — a staple ingredient on every menu when you dine in restaurants up in the hills close to our Maremma villas.
