Forte dei Marmi

Forte dei Marmi, with its bars and high-class shops, has been able to select an elite tourism and it is one of the main exclusive and fashionable areas of Italy.
All the town is known thanks to its fashionable bars and shops.

The environment, immersed among rich pine forests and beautiful tree-lined boulevards, is as worldly as relaxing.

All the tourists who have visited this place, will surely miss the walks on the pier that runs out for 300 kilometers and the beach, offering all the comforts.

By walking through its streets or going into its pubs, it is not difficult at all to meet some celebrities.

The tourist will find himself in a really charming city, which offers all the discretion and comforts to its tourists.

To relax is the keyword but there will be events and fashionable appointments where you can go wild and stay out until the morning.

Among its discos, you absolutely have to go to “Capannina di Franceschi” where all the greatest of the world have performed and still perform.

The emblem of Forte dei Marmi, situated in the centre of the city, is called “Il Fortino”: it deals with a fortress built in 1788, desired by Grand Duke of Tuscany Leopoldo I of Lorena. It was created to make this area more secure and to promote urban settlement.

Nowadays, this building is immersed in a modern urban scene, made up by a street grid lined with trees, which gives to the city a fashionable and relaxing aspect.

Next to “Il Fortino”, in Piazza Garibaldi, there is a well dating back to the eighteenth century.

Proceeding toward the sea, it is possible to admire the pier once used to load big marble blocks leaving toward the entire world; nowadays it is only used as a touristic destination, where it is possible to walk and to admire the coast with a distance of 300 meters from it.

Of great interest is the entire town planning and especially the district “Roma Imperiale” where you can find several villas created by architects such as Michelucci, Giò Ponti and Pagano and some buildings such as Hotel Augustus, with its underpass leading you directly to the sea and the oldest Italian disco, “Capannina di Franceschi”, inaugurated in 1929.

The name of the city is sufficient to make us understand its origins. Forte dei Marmi was born where the street wanted by Michelangelo Buonarroti ended; through it, marble blocks were transported from Apuan Alps to the sea.

The first construction we know about is “Magazzino dei Marmi” (Marble warehouse) wanted by Cosimo of Medici in 1618 and still partly exposed from “Strada Provinciale”.

Around this first building, a little village of anglers and sailors was soon born. It expanded when the surrounding countryside had been rehabilitated and a fortress had been built: it lead many family units to move toward the coast, now safer.

Several professions developed such as shipbuilding next to the one of drivers of carts transporting marbles to the boarding. Only in the 19th century, Tuscan nobles discovered Forte dei Marmi as a touristic destination and contributed to the birth of the first bathing establishments that, in the future, will constitute the main activity of the city.

Slowly, there were the right conditions for Forte dei Marmi to separate from Pietrasanta and it became an independent Municipality in 1914. Since that period, despite several difficulties such as those occurred during the Second World War because of the Gothic Line, the city developed its touristic vocation becoming the important centre we know now. It reached its brightest period during the 60s when it was elected summer residence by several powerful Italian families, who created their villas in the pine forest of Roma Imperiale.