Maremma is what Tuscany looks like before the tourists arrive. The landscape here is rougher, wilder, less curated — macchia scrubland rolling down to a coastline that has been quietly excellent for centuries without needing anyone's approval. The hill towns are fewer and further apart. The roads are emptier. The wild boar cross them at dusk without apology.

This was malarial marshland until the nineteenth century, which is why it escaped the grand tour and never quite recovered its reputation. That is entirely to its benefit. The Etruscan ruins at Sovana and Pitigliano sit in a landscape so unchanged it feels like trespassing. Pitigliano itself — a medieval town built on a tufa cliff above a ravine — is one of the most dramatic sights in Italy and one of the least visited.

The thermal springs at Saturnia fall free from a rockface into natural pools. You can arrive at dawn, before the crowds, and sit in water that has been running at exactly 37 degrees for longer than anyone can remember. Maremma doesn't perform. It simply exists, and it is enough.