The Maremma Park has neat walking trails with different routes that take you by 16th century lookout towers erected by the Medici's to protect this part of the Tuscan coastline, down rocky decents to the sea, through ancient olive groves, and under centuries old pines. This is a big park, completely natural and we'd visited it previously on several other occasions. One time we headed past the pasture of wild Maremma horses, the cows, and grazing deer to the Marina di Alberese. Not a marina for boats but a natural beach stretching for 25 km. Last week we headed out of Talamone (blog post:
Trekking) where we walked along a ridge with the sea on one side and views of the valley, hills and mountains on the other. Then we headed by park bus to the interior for a walk that combined all of the terrains (plus a stealthy fox) with our neighbors Mario and Wanda. Mario, who is in his mid-70s, is an experienced hiker who just last year comleted a circumnavigation of Monte Rosso, a seven-day journey which took him over ice fields. They also run a huge farm with cows, vineyards, olive trees, geese, chickens and a couple of dogs and cats. Mario and Wanda were able to enlighten us further about the fauna and flora in the park. They showed us myrtle which was prized in ancient times for its medicinal qualities and is still made into a liquor in Sardegna that is used as a digestive. We were so happy that they suggested this trek and pleased to do it on a beautiful day in our last week in the Maremma.
We encountered this little red fox on the beach and later the little scamp was photographed taking our entire package of GranCereal cookies. We had left our backpack open after lunch to stroll the beach and another park visitor caught the fox in the act with package in mouth, stopping to show us later on the trail.
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