You know how it is: when your holiday is over you just want to extend it a little more before you go back to your work or usual occupation.
While we were deciding our route from Rome to Genova were my husband Nazim was suppose to get back to work, we opted for the road that runs along the Tyrrhenian Sea and derives from an ancient consular road, the Via Aurelia that connected and still does, Rome to France.
Grosseto, Tarquinia, Santa Marinella, l’Argentario, Capalbio, Montalto di Castro, Lucca…. We have to resist the temptation to check out all these places and continue on our way but when lunchtime creeps along, we find the right excuse to make a right turn and leave the motorway; among the others we decided to pick a village right on the sea:Talamone, in the province of Grosseto, in Tuscany.
The date on which we are traveling is a challenge: the first day of the year when normally in Italy it’s virtually impossible to find an open restaurant. If it is true that fortune favors the brave let’s see what Talamone can offer.
A few hundred meters from the main road you find yourself in a bay formed by a rocky promontory with a small harbor, full of sailboats, dominated by an austere fortress, a typical Italian coastal landscape.
We had never been to Talamone before and we were lucky enough to visit it for the first time in a cold but clear winter day.
I was already looking forward climbing on top of the hill where the castle was calling me when I realize Nazim was plotting to divert my attention from the beauties of the place and take me straight to a restaurant. He shares with me both my love for excursions and for the arts but when the clock indicates that is time for lunch, something clicks in his head and he could be in front of the Parthenon and still stare at Gyros in the hand of the German tourist by his side. Nothing can deter his search for the perfect lunch place and in the years I have succumbed: to avoid resentment I give up and follow him since I know his urgency (just a step beyond autism) will lead us to the best place ever.
This is the turn of the restaurant “La Buca”: fish and seafood, a good glass of white wine, coffee: I must say, as usual, he was right. The lunch was good, the owner smart as a comedian, the location nice and cozy and above all, my husband was finally ready to climb the long stairs to the castle.
Talamone is right on the southern border of the Maremma Natural Park, surrounded by the typical vegetation of Mediterranean and long sandy beaches, lined by pine trees.
It has very old Etruscan origins and its name are linked to Giuseppe Garibaldi and his Thousand who stopped there in 1886: the fortress was the gathering point for volunteers who embarked towards battle from Talamone. This is one of those school reminiscences, lost in the back of my poor memory but that rings a bell as soon as you pronounce the name of the town.
Back in the early Middle Ages, Talamone was under the domination of the Aldobrandeschi and the family built the imposing castle in the thirteenth century as a watchtower on the underlying shore. The 180 ° view from the top of the promontory at the foot of the fortress is beautiful and worth the tour and if you have the opportunity to come in summer, a wonderful stop for a swim in the blue, Tyrrhenian sea.
Betti
How to get to Talamone:
[socialWarfare]