GROSSETO
260km from Versilia

The origins of Grosseto trace back to the High Middle Ages. 
It is first mentioned in 803 as a fief of the Counts Aldobrandeschi, in a document  stating the assignment of the church of St. George to Ildebrando degli Aldobrandeschi, 
whose successor where counts of the Grossetana Mark until the end of the 12th century. 
It grew in importance with years, owing to the decay of Rusellæ (cfr. infra) and Vetulonia. 
Grosseto was one of the principal Etruscan cities. In 1137 the city was sieged by German troops led by duke Henry X of Bavaria, send by the emperor Lothair III to reinstate his authority  over the Aldobrandeschi. One year later the bishopric of Roselle was transferred to Grosseto.
In 1151 the citizens swore loyalty to Siena. 

When in 1222 the Aldobrandeschi gave the Grossetani the right to have a podestà of their own, together with three councellors and the consuls. In 1244, the city passed again to Siena, together with all the Aldobrandeschi's imperial privileges as the Sienese captured it and were legally invested 
with it by the imperial vicar; thus Grosseto shared the fortuned of Siena. It became an important  stronghold, and the fortress (rocca), the walls and bastions are still to be seen. In 1266 and  in 1355, it sought freedom from the overlordship of Siena, but in vain. While Guelph and Ghibelline 
parties struggled within the city, Umberto and Aldobrandino Aldobrandeschi tried to regain to their family Grosseto. The Senese armies were however victorious, and in 1259 they named a podestà  from their city. But Grosseto freed and the year later fought alongside with Florence in the 
Battle of Montaperti. 

The following decades saw Grosseto again occupied, ravaged, excommunicated  by Pope Clement IV, again free under a republic led by Maria Scozia Tolomei, sieged by emperor  Louis IV (1328) and by the antipope Nicholas V in 1336, until it definitively submitted to  the most powerful Siena. The pestilence of 1348 struck hard against Grosseto, whose population in 1369 had reduced to some a hundred of familiar nuclei. Its territory, moreover, was frequently ravaged, as in 1447 by Alfons V of Sicily and in 1455 by Jacopo Piccinino.

--Vulci---Populonia

Vetulonia has Etruscan origins. Dionysius of Halicarnassus places the city within the Latin alliance against Rome in the seventh century BC. According to Silius Italicus (Punica VIII.485ff), the Romans took their magisterial insignia, the Lictors' rods and fasces and the curule seat, from Vetulonia; in 1898, a tomb in the necropolis was discovered with a bundle of iron rods with a double-headed axe in the centre, and soon afterwards, a grave stela inscribed for Avele Feluske was discovered, on which the fasces were pictued. Pliny the Elder and Ptolemy also cite the town.

near Grosseto Uccellina Park,

the Maremma Natural Park. With an extension of over one hundred squared kilometres, not including the external trip next to it, the Park borders with the sea to the south and South West, and overlooks it in the southern part with a high and eroded coast.

Moving up to the North, this type of coast is then overtaken by beaches whose vegetation is mainly characterised by pioneering species which can easily adapt to the difficult sandy and saltish environment. Moving away from the waterline, it is possible to see the change of vegetation with the predominance of species characteristic of the Mediterranean maquis. The coastal line has been subjected to many changes, not only during the geological periods but also in recent times: this explains why it has moved forward to the south of Marina di Alberese, and why it has considerably moved back on both sides of the mouth of the River Ombrone ( Fiume Ombrone). From a naturalistic point of view, the whole group characterised by the Uccellina Mountains ( Monti dell’ Uccellina), the pine-wood of Marina di Alberese, the mouth of the River Ombrone and Trappola marshes ( paludi), represents a precious mosaic of ecosystems on which man has intervened in different ways and moments: in doing so he has contributed to further changes of the landscape, without degrading or impoverishing it.
Maremma Natural Park is located in Southern Tuscany and is part of the Province of Grosseto ( Provincia di Grosseto); from

www.parco-maremma.it/Inglese