Torre Nuova and Torre Hidalgo

Two sixteenth-century watchtowers still stand on the hills above Punta Ala, built by the Medici state to guard the Tyrrhenian coast against the Barbary pirates who raided Tuscan fishing villages for much of the 1500s. Torre Nuova is the larger of the two, a round defensive tower of the classic coastal type. Torre Hidalgo takes its name from its Spanish origins — a reminder that Tuscany at this period was very much within the Spanish sphere of influence.

The towers are not open to the public but form an atmospheric backdrop to walks through the pine forests above the resort. The path to Torre Nuova starts from the northern end of the marina and takes about twenty minutes through Mediterranean scrub.

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A story
The two towers at Punta Ala were built in the sixteenth century on the orders of Eleonora di Toledo — the Spanish-born Duchess of Florence who married Cosimo I de' Medici — as part of a chain of watchtowers along the Tuscan coast. The towers were designed to relay fire signals to warn of pirate raids. By the time a ship was sighted and the chain of fires lit, the population could retreat inland. They were not always quick enough.

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