18 km south of Grosseto. Coastal area betwen Grosseto and Tarquinia (www.parco-maremma.it/en/). ‘Natural park’ in Italy often means a wilderness and most of the Maremma is just that: dry marsh, a sparsely-populated coastal plain of some interest to botanists and slaughterers of wild game. Buffaloes produce mozzarella cheese and wild boar provide the aromatic but greasy Maremma ham. Maremma herdsmen, ugly brutes, generally ride the horses in that vicious free-for-all, the Palio of Siena.

Saltwater fauna and sand-loving plants predominate, with belts of pinewood in the hilly Monte dell’Uccellina district, a protected area south of Grosseto. Up-and-coming beach resorts on the mainland north and south of Elba are banded together under the bogus sign of ‘Costa Maremmana’.