Viareggio Holidays

Va va voom Viareggio

A sandy beach, locally produced cuisine and a clutch of marble-clad piano bars make Viareggio a fave holiday hotspot for Italians and foreigners alike. It’s grown from a 12th-century fishing village into a swankified seaside town with a grand harbour, sheltered by dense pine forests to the north.

A dash of high culture

Viareggio boasts a few ties to some famous faces. Like Puccini, the Italian opera composer. He built an Art Deco villa here in the 1920s and you can take a jolly there today. The poet Percy Shelley also visited the town many times – and died here, too. He lived his last days 40 minutes up the road, in a ramshackle boathouse called Casa Magni.

Walking trails and camera-ready landscapes

In addition to its name-dropping, the town’s got some serious good-looking scenery to show off about. Surrounded by rolling hills, green countryside, the Apuan Alps and Lake Massaciuccoli, there’s plenty of scenery to get your teeth – and your camera skills – into. Long walks through pine forests and along the coast are perfect afternoon activities when you’re not lounging on the beach.