Pieve di Caminino is a unique property which is deeply rooted in the history of its locality.   ‘Pieve’ means parish church, in this case an eleventh-century Romanesque church built near the spot where St Feriolo was martyred by the Romans. 

By the thirteenth century it had expanded into a monastery, and a tiny borgo, or hamlet, Caminino, had sprung up around it: a school, the schoolmaster’s house, the gamekeeper’s house and several farmhouses. 

The ancestors of the present owners bought the hamlet and the surrounding land in 1873 and began to cultivate its olive groves. Today the family produces a high quality olive oil which is sold all over Italy and the houses of the medieval borgo have been converted into seven superb, high individual apartments, all sharing the use of a superb new swimming pool.

The apartments have many traditional features such as Tuscan fireplaces, stone floors and beamed ceilings and have charming bedrooms with antique bedframes.  There are also many unusual features to look out for like the mullioned window of the original church façade in La Bifora.  Each apartment has its own outside seating area, either a sunny terrace, or patio, and all have glimpses from window or balcony of the spectacular southerly views across the Maremman plain.  By the private lake the owners have tried to leave surrounding land as natural as possible, and guests are free to explore over 1000 acres of woodland and olive groves. 

Italy’s great centres of art and architecture, from Florence to Rome, are easily accessible from Caminino, but the Maremman has its own special qualities which draw guests deeper into this still unfrequented corner of Tuscany.  A few kilometres north of Caminino, the village of Roccatederighi lays claim to a Palio older than that of Siena, which is re-enacted every August with a pageant in the tight knot of medieval streets.  The area’s rich Etruscan legacy can be glimpsed in the ruins of the ancient city of Vetulónia and less than an hour’s drive away, Massa Marittima, in its exquisite medieval piazza, boasts one of the great cathedrals of Tuscany. 

Around Roccastrada, 10km to the east, the local council has waymarked a series of easy paths and muletracks through hills covered with Mediterranean oak, chestnut, beech and yew, where deer, otters, foxes and wild cats are watched over by buzzards and falcons.  The primeval oasis of the Regional Park of the Maremma is a short drive to the south and, for sun worshippers, there is a six-kilometre stretch of undeveloped beach between Grosseto and Castiglione della Pescaia.

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