Castagneto Carducci
The Commune of Castagneto has been visited for many years by tourists
and beach lovers in search of tranquillity and rest, but in recent times
it has become known also internationally. Tourism has developed even
more and new accomodations and leasure infrastructures have been built.
The territory counts four hamlets each with different traditions and
characteristics.
Castagneto Carducci, a pleasant medieval
village built uphill around a castle that is still inhabited by the
Counts of Gherardesca. The castle stands at the top of the hill and
is connected with the ancient San Lorenzo parish Church. Stepping downhill,
one reaches the Town Hall, dominated by the clock tower, and the old
part of the village, where one can find many good restaurants and handicraft
boutiques.
Marina is the seaside resort of the Commune,
surrounded by a thick pine wood, it faces a wide fine sand beach equipped
with bathing facilities.
Bolgheri is an ancient hamlet that can
be reached from San Guido, on the Aurelia road, following the 3,5 miles
beautiful Cypress Avenue that leads in a strait line to the entrance
of the castle and of the hamlet where one can visit the Church, the
main square and the house in which the poet Carducci spent his boyhood.
Finally Donoratico, the most
populated centre of the Commune, with shops, supermarkets and many small
industrial units, among which the best known is the leasure boat construction
yard. The rest of the territory has a variegated landscape: Olive groves,
mediterranean thicket and forest on the hills; cereals, fruit and vegetable
orchards, large vineyards at the foot of the hills; pine wood along
the coast, and the sea from which, when the visibility is good, one
can see the Tuscan islands and the not too far Corsica, on the horizon.
