When it comes to planning a trip to Italy’s Tuscany region, the first images that comes to mind are naturally of rolling hillsides, medieval hilltop villages, winding roads lined with those “creepy Italian trees”, and fields of sunflowers. And that certainly is Tuscany! But the region also has a  beautiful coastline and oh so many tempting beaches. Lisa Fantino from Wanderlust Women Travel has stopped by this week to share with us about one of her favorite beaches in Tuscany.

Welcome, Lisa!

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There is never a bad day when you’re at the beach. Rain, sleet, snow….oh yeah, and sun, each offers a different opportunity to enjoy the splendor of the sea……….and if the beach just happens to be in Italy, then that’s an added bonus.

La Maremma national park (Parco Naturale della Maremma), along the coast of Tuscany is magnificent in its raw beauty. This is a different beach scene than Ostia Lido near Rome or the tourist-trodden Tropea in Calabria. This is nature at its best—wild, unkempt and beautiful.

This particular day, driving through a shaded grove, lined with wild horses and the occasional Italian cowboy (buttero), it was hard to imagine that the sea lies dead ahead. The trees stand tall over Marina di Alberese, as they have done for centuries, and the Tyrrhenian Sea is nowhere on the horizon for several miles. It’s not until you are well into the parking lot, just beyond the small refreshment stand, that you spy a sliver of turquoise amid the blackness of the branches. Step closer and you will see the white sand beaches, so different from the rocky shores of the Amalfi Coast.

There are private coves along the shoreline where lovers can seemingly hide from the world, and children can get lost in the groves of pine trees. Privacy in public is possible in this wilderness. This is not a beach for boom boxes and sunbrellas. This is a shore for soul-searching, sun-soaking and truly taking the sun au naturale, as a small portion of this park is also a nude beach.

La Maremma runs along the Tuscan coast for some 150 miles and La Marina di Alberese can be found just south of Grosetto.

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Lisa Fantino is an award-winning journalist and attorney and the Italy travel consultant behind Wanderlust Women Travel and the Italy destination wedding site Wanderlust Weddings. She also writes travel features for MNUI Travel Insurance and blogs as Lady Litigator.