Rosignano

Thanks to certain documents, we know that already in the 11th century, on the hill where Rosignano Marittimo is located, there was a farm-house that was later transformed into a country place and later into a castle.
Around the year one thousand, the Castle of Rosignano became the propriety of the Bishops of Pisa. Rosignano Marittimo still retains some aspects of what was once (12th-14th-century) the medieval castle perched high on the hill and surrounded by walls, that has now been restored. Also of interest is church of the Castle, Romanesque in origin but remodelled during the 16th century.
After the land reclamation carried out between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries along the coast dominated by the village of Rosignano Marittimo, in 1914 the industry of the Solvay company was established. This became a very important industrial pole that brought about the settlement of more than 16.000 inhabitants. Rosignano Solvay is in fact the most populated hamlet of the commune of Rosignano.
It is developed in particular to the north-west of the industrial settlement, where sodium carbonate, carbonate and bicarbonate of soda are produced. The said solvay company has greatly contributed to the construction of the town, according to the criteria of “garden-towns” that greatly influenced the European nineteenth century. The Rosignano Solvay coast is characterised by long beaches, the so-called “white beaches”, that are located south of the town.
Deserted and white beaches, blue sky, clear water... a dram only few can afford: a trip to the tropics or on a small island of the Austral hemisphere. That’s also the impression you get when travelling along the Statale Aurelia, connecting Livorno to Grosseto, directed South: a tropical beach, no palms, but a blue sea and candid sand.
From the height of the Aurelia, coming from Livorno and having surpassed the Castiglioncello exit, before reaching that of Rosignano Marittimo, turning your gaze along the jagged coastline, an unusual strip of extremely white sand appears, about four kilometres. This peculiar place is known, quite understandably, with the name of White Beaches.
The reason for the unusual white colour of the sand is the result of years of production of bicarbonate, with its plant in Rosignano Marittimo, about a kilometre from the coast.