Marina di Grosseto
Marina di Grosseto is a district ( frazione ) of the provincial capital Grosseto in the south of Tuscany . It is located 12 km west of the city in a wide bay on the Tyrrhenian Sea and is a popular seaside resort for Grossetan residents and foreign guests.
history
Although southern Tuscany was an Etruscan ancestral home, the history of the place is only two centuries old.
Today's Bay of Grosseto between Castiglione della Pescaia and the mouth of the Ombrone in the Parco Naturale della Maremma was a large salt lake ( Lacus Prelius ) in ancient times , which silted up and swamped in the Middle Ages. The unhealthy climate in which malaria was rampant prevented the settlement of people until the late 18th and 19th centuries.
In 1793, when the largely uninhabited area was politically part of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany , the Habsburg Ferdinand III. build a fortification tower. At that time there was already the small hamlet of San Rocco . It is named after Saint Roch because the plague occurred in Marseille around 1720 and this small coastal post for monitoring incoming ships saw itself as a protective alliance against the introduction of the disease. After Ferdinand's successor Leopold II succeeded in partially draining the swamps as part of a large-scale program ( la bonifica ), fishermen successively settled the wide sandy coastline, which is now part of the pine forest strip planted on behalf of the Grand Duke and in the hinterland of mountain chains wild rosemary, gorse bushes and other macchia vegetation.
tourism
The transformation into a tourist resort with hotel and apartment complexes, holiday apartments , campsites , bars and restaurants took place in the second half of the 20th century. After surviving the Second World War, when malaria was finally eradicated, the urban youth of Grosseto and families with children sought the previously not carefree bathing pleasure. The development quickly developed to appear urban dimensions. Gradually, Marina di Grosseto also attracted supraregional summer visitors and was frequented on the weekends by short-term holidaymakers, especially from Siena , Arezzo , Florence and Rome .
Towards the end of the 20th century, the rapidly growing infrastructure was increasingly criticized by environmentalists. Tourist needs have changed, many of the large apartment complexes are empty today, and alternative agrotourism offers in the hills of the hinterland are on the rise. The requirements for camping have become stricter, for example wild camping in the pine forest is no longer allowed. The tourism industry tries to attract German and English-speaking vacationers and advertises the favorable location of the place in the vicinity of the Etruscan archaeological sites, the historically and art-historically outstanding Tuscan city-states ( Pisa , Siena , Florence ) as well as the Maremma nature reserves. Due to the road layout and traffic density, a more time-consuming journey to these attractions must be taken into account than their sheer geographical proximity would suggest.
The Bay of Grosseto was awarded the "Blue Flag" by the Foundation for Environmental Education in Europe (FEEE) for excellent water quality.
Almost all facilities are closed outside the bathing season. Terms like ghost town / abandoned city have been used in testimonials for Marina di Grosseto in winter.
Web links
Coordinates: 42 ° 43 ' N , 10 ° 59' E