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Castiglione della Pescaia, regionally simply abbreviated as Castiglione, is an ancient seaside town in the province of Grosseto, in Tuscany, Italy. The modern city grew around a medieval fortress (Italian: castello) and a large fishery, from which it acquired its designation. Today Castiglione is known mostly for its beaches, a vibrant nightlife, its nature, but also its majestic fortress and the uncontaminated natural reserve Diaccia Botrona, a swampy humid environment hosting unique wildlife, e.g. flamingoes, mallards and ducks.
It has become a centre of international tourism and in 2014 it ranked 4th among the most visited destinations in Tuscany,with approximately 1.3 million tourist arrivals, only preceded by Florence, Pisa and Montecatini Terme. It is interesting to notice how Castiglione is not only the first seaside destination in Maremma, but it is also the first in Tuscany. Strangely, although Castiglione is extremely popular among German, Dutch, Russian and French tourists, it is not particularly known by the British, so much that the British online newspaper The Telegraph described Castiglione's annexed fraction, Punta Ala, as a corner of Tuscany the British haven't found. Due to its popularity, but also its cleanliness and high environmental standards, Castiglione is often referred to as the Switzerland of Maremma, diversifying itself from other seaside towns by a refusal to turn itself into an industrialised commercial destination, prioritising the nature and its wildness. These efforts were rewarded as Castiglione, as mentioned above, is the most popular seaside town in Tuscany. Castiglione's crystalline sea has been repeatedly nominated as Italy's best sea by the national non-governmental environmentalist organisation Legambiente. This happened to be the case in the most recent edition of the awards too, in 2015. Punta Ala (formerly Punta Troia) is a frazione of the town of Castiglione della Pescaia, in the province of Grosseto, Tuscany, Italy. It is a famous seaside resort which lies at the bottom of the northern hillsides of the promontory of the same name. |
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