CASTIGLIONCELLO, IL MARE E LA SCOGLIERA.

The Cecina area has been settled since the Iron Age: many archaeological finds bear witness to considerable industry at that time, when the course of the river was studded with a large number of stonecutting workshops.
The Cecina Valley’s coastal plain turned into a hub of activity at the height of the Etruscan civilisation’s development (between the 7th and 5th centuries BC), when organised communities settled there and prospered on trade with Cyprus, Phoenicia, Egypt and Greece, as is borne out today by the many burial grounds located in the Cecina, Casale Marittimo, Montescudaio and Bibbona areas.
The 18th-century Villa della Cinquantina, which hosts the Etrusco-Roman Museum, is of particular interest. International tourism developed on the coastal strip in the sixties, a period that saw the building of modern, comfortably appointed hotels, restaurants where the area’s fish and seafood specialities may be sampled, bathing establishments and campsites that contribute to the local economy.
Cecina’s famous state-owned pine forest, which Grand Duke Leopold of Tuscany had planted to shelter the crops grown in its lee against the salt spray, extends for 15 km along the Etruscan Coast, creating a striking landscape.

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