Castiglione della Pescaia

Almost all the territory of Castiglione della Pescaia was once sea. In the Quaternary the old sea beds rose by some three hundred metres and the water withdrew tens of kilometres to the south-west, leaving emerged the plain one now crosses to reach the beach. Between the mouth of the Bruna and that of the Ombrone, however, a stretch of water remained that never filled in: it was lake Prile, and it was salt. That salt was a trade until the late Middle Ages, when the lake lost its salinity and became marsh — and the marsh brought malaria. In the eighteenth century the Lorraine began the drainage, with canals and works of reclamation, and of that basin what remains today is the nature reserve of the Diaccia Botrona. The same water, in order: salt pan, disease, fields to be farmed and finally protected area.

The name too is made of two pieces coming from different documents. In the eighth century Castelione appears, referring to the settlement of the Paduline on the river bank; in a document of 814 the area of the older Roman settlement is instead called Piscaria a Mare. In the Middle Ages Castelione prevails, and only much later does the Pescaia join it. Of the Romans there survive the ruins of the villa of the Paduline, on the right bank of the Bruna, near the canal port; of the Etruscans, on the other hand, far more remains, because Vetulonia — one of the great Etruscan cities — is a hamlet of this comune. Between the end of the eighteenth century and the middle of the nineteenth the port had a season of prosperity, which closed when the routes changed with the opening of the Pisa–Vada railway. Today Castiglione is the most visited seaside destination in Tuscany and the second place in the region after Florence, and in 2015 Legambiente named its sea the most beautiful in Italy.