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CASTIGLIONCELLO
One of the most suggestive Italian tourist
places, boasts of historical traditions of ancient date.
Village of poor fishermen at the extreme borders of the Etruscan empire , follows the fate of Volterra. Of this period, of the Etruscan power , a very refined testimony remains in the funeral urn in alabaster, which goes back to the second century B.C. and was found just in the necropolis of Castiglioncello. It was for centuries a calm and isolated place. Placed in a privileged panoramic position , distant from the big streets of communication, it has remained unknown and uncontaminated up to the modern epoch with its luxuriant pinewoods and its spectacular bluffs.
The Medici family made a beautiful tower built, as a part of the system of fortification erected to
protect the shore against the frequent piratical raids. The Tower of Castiglioncello was the first building built on the promontory of Castiglioncello and had function of defense and sighting of the raids of the Saracen pirates. It was built by order of Cosimo I of the Medici family, in the same architectural style of the twin tower of Calafuria, that still preserves the original characteristics, since some battlements were added to the one in Castiglioncello ,at the summit, when the Pasquini Castle was built in the XIX
century. The soldiers' barracks, adjoining to the tower, has now disappeared. The tourist fortune of Castiglioncello begins in the second half of the VIII century, when for the meekness of the climate and the beauty of the landscape, Diego
Martelli, an art critic and patron, settled here. He invited continuously, up to the end of the
century, almost all the painters who belonged to the group of the" Macchiaioli" and became famous afterwards. In this way he gave origin to a famous artistic period called "School of Castiglioncello". Writers such as , Renato Fucini and Giovanni Marradi, the real poet of Castiglioncello, sojourned
here. Today it is one of the most famous places of the Tyrrhenian Sea, known in Italy and abroad for the beauties of the landscape, for the quality and refinement of the services that it offers and for the cultural and associative initiatives of great value that it promotes.
The tourist hospitality of Castiglioncello includes 33 hotels 800 private lodgings, 17 restaurants, 20 bathing establishments, nighttime meeting places, tennis fields, cinema, minigolf, children's playgrounds. Among the main cultural and
sports appointments you can find the Festival of the Dance, Music and theatre of the studio of the West Coast, the literary Prize Castiglioncello-coast of the Etruscans, the Sailing Regattas, the National Photographic Contest "City of Castiglioncello", the fish feast of Caletta that takes place on the second Sunday of June and it is an appointment of success that is renewed every year with the enormous frying pan on the beach of Caletta, that starts the tourist season.
Besides the already mentioned Medicea Tower , the near little church among the pine trees (church of St. Andrea) built in 1621 and the Pasquini Castle are worth a visit. The inside of the castle, recently restructured, is the seat of
numerous exhibitions and conferences, while outside there is a theatre where concerts and shows of different types are organized. Among the recurrent cultural demonstrations, we must mention the theme conference regarding the problems of Children and the under age where, every year, experts and researchers of the sector of international fame
participate.
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