Siena and the Sea

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Siena sits inland, on its ridge, an hour or more from any beach — and for most of this site that distance is the point. This page is the exception: an honest answer, for the reader who has a week and wonders whether the coast is worth the detour.

It is not a short drive. Nothing about Siena's position pretends otherwise: Hotel Il Pellicano's own distances table puts Siena at 135 km. What makes the journey worth it is the shape of two things — a stretch of protected coastline that has never been developed, and a promontory town with one of the more storied small hotels on this coast.

The park that stayed empty

The Parco Regionale della Maremma runs along the Tyrrhenian coast south-west of Grosseto, centred on the Uccellina hills and the mouth of the Ombrone. It is the park's own site — the issuing authority for anything about visiting it — that this page defers to, and it publishes its own access terms rather than a summary of them.

What matters for planning is simple: this is a regional park with managed access, not an open beach car park. Trails and entry points are controlled, which is exactly why the coastline inside it has stayed as undeveloped as it has for the length of the Tuscan shore this far south. That trade — a walk in, rather than a drive up — is the reason to go, not an inconvenience around it.

Practical detail belongs to the park itself. Trail routes, current opening arrangements and any seasonal closures should be confirmed on the park's own site before a visit is planned around it.

Its own territory page gives the scale: 8,902 hectares of protected area plus 9,097 hectares of contiguous area, roughly 18,000 hectares in total, across the comuni of Grosseto, Magliano in Toscana and Orbetello. The coast inside it runs about 30 km, from Principina a Mare to Talamone, taking in the Ombrone river mouth. The park was established in June 1975 — Tuscany's first regional park. (The park's own site gives two figures for its coastline — thirty kilometres on the dedicated territory page, twenty on another. We follow the territory page, the more precise of the two, and note the discrepancy rather than choose silently — the same instinct that governs a disputed DOCG date elsewhere on this site.)

Porto Ercole, and one hotel

Further south, the coast rises into Monte Argentario, the promontory that was an island until causeways connected it to the mainland. On its eastern side sits Porto Ercole, a fishing harbour beneath a Spanish-built fortress, and on the shore below it, Hotel Il Pellicano.

Worth stating plainly, since it is easy to assume otherwise: Il Pellicano is in Porto Ercole, not in Castiglione della Pescaia. They are two separate towns on the same coast, well apart, with Grosseto on the road between them. The hotel's own address is Località Sbarcatello, Porto Ercole (GR). (Porto Ercole to Castiglione della Pescaia: 44 miles, roughly 71 km, just over an hour by road.)

The hotel's own description of itself is worth quoting rather than paraphrasing: a "timeless Mediterranean hideaway... in a cove along the Tyrrhenian Sea coast." It is not a large property, and it does not operate year-round — the 2026 season runs 2 April to 26 October, worth knowing before building a winter or early-spring visit around it.

Three things distinguish it:

• The hotel itself — a cove-side property on Monte Argentario.
• Dining — Ristorante Il Pellicano, Italian and Tuscan, built around "dishes from land and sea." The restaurant's own page states "1 Star in the Italy MICHELIN Guide 2025." We repeat that as the hotel's claim, not as our own verified rating — the same distinction this site draws for every Michelin mention in Siena itself.
• The beach club — The Benissimo Club, which includes a Beach Club and Pool the hotel describes as "adored by Slim Aarons."

This page names Il Pellicano — as hotel, restaurant and beach club — and stops there. It does not attempt Porto Ercole's other hotels, Punta Ala's marina, or the wider Argentario social season: houses we have not yet had cause to research properly, and the house rule here is the same one every guide on this site follows — no name without a source.

Castiglione della Pescaia

North of the park, on the coast closer to Grosseto, sits Castiglione della Pescaia — a comune with its own harbour and, by its own account, a seaside identity built around the port and its beaches. That much is confirmed at the comune's own site; the detail a reader actually wants — which hotel, which stretch of sand, which club has a table free — is not, yet. From Siena it is 58 miles (roughly 93 km), about 1 hour 15 minutes by road — the shorter of the two coastal excursions this page covers.

This page names the town and stops there, for the same reason it stops at one hotel on the Argentario: nothing specific inside Castiglione della Pescaia has earned a place here. A future edition can add one once a real property has been properly vetted, the same discipline already applied to Porto Ercole.

The distance, plainly

Siena to Porto Ercole is 135 km, per Hotel Il Pellicano's own distances table — the same table that puts Florence at 200 km, Rome at 160 and Pisa at 205. A routed driving distance gives a different figure: roughly 75 miles (121 km), about 1 hour 40 minutes by road. The two don't agree — the hotel's table likely rounds or measures differently than an actual drive — so both are printed here rather than one picked silently. Either way, this is a proper excursion, well beyond a half-day's reach, and better planned as a night or two of its own than as a detour from a week based in Siena.

Porto Ercole to Castiglione della Pescaia is 44 miles (roughly 71 km), just over an hour by road.

Practical Information

Every fact above comes from the Parco Regionale della Maremma's own site — its home page and its territory page for the park's size, coastline and founding date — from Hotel Il Pellicano's own site, including its dining, beach-club and distances pages, or from the Comune di Castiglione della Pescaia's own site. Where a figure is not published by any of these, this page prints none. The Michelin star is the hotel's own claim, not our independent rating.

Continue Reading

• The Val d'Orcia driving route
• Crete Senesi
• Tuscany from Siena

By the Siena & Toscana editors

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