Every year, the butteri reenact this historical challenge a few kilometres south of Grosseto, capital of the province, at the headquarters of the Maremma National Park, whose recent creation has made it possible to preserve intact a vast area of Mediterranean bush, beach, swampland, the last trace of the Maremma of once upon a time. A habitat populated by, apart from the horses and cows which roam free, an incredible wild fauna: wild boar, deer, foxes, herons, storks and many other birds native to the swamps. It’s well worth a visit, especially in May when you can enjoy the perfume of the bush in flower and the magic of the swamplands still covered by water. In June and July the waters retreat and the landscape is transformed into a sort of African savana.

Further away, on the hills, the rows of cypresses that line the roads seem to be spirits of ancient Etruscan warriors arrayed to protect their cities: Roselle, Vetulonia and, further south, Pitigliano, Sovana, and Sorano. These last were built on outcrops of tufo rock, resistent but at the same time soft enough to carve into, so that it looks like a slice of gruyere full of holes, caverns and galleries, utilised at one time by the Etruscans as tombs for the ashes of the dead, and today as henruns, stables for the animals or cellars for the excellent wine of the area named ”Bianco di Pitigliano” These three cities were joined to each other by secret roads, the so-called “vie cave” (carved roads), just wide enough for a cart to pass, cut deep into the rock, with high walls rising above them like canyons.

Not far from Pitigliano, at the foot of the hill where another Etruscan city, Saturnia, stands, a sulphur-rich spring of warm water with a temperature of 37° gushes out at about 600 litres a second.

The hot springs have been well-known and frequented since the time of the Romans, who dug a series of small pools under the small waterfall that at a few hundred metres from the spring, between the smoke and vapours with an infernal smell, create a fantastic natural open-air hydromassage.

A unique spectacle, an unforgettable experience. In winter, when the outside temperature perhaps drops below zero, you might however find it more comfortable to use the hot pools of the Hotel Terme of Saturnia, built right around the spring where the water is much wamer.

But Maremma is also and above all the sea: beautiful beaches with high dunes of white sand and marine pines, wild islands like Giglio and Montecristo, small ports like Port Ercole, Talamone, and Castiglione della Pescaia, fortified to defend themselves against the incursions of the Saracen pirates who were the scourge of the Tuscan coast right up until the end of the 1700s, plundering all that they found.