On Monday we drove north into Tuscany on
the Via Aurelia, or the coast highway. We spent the next three nights in a
very nice bed and breakfast located in the hills just a few miles from the
coast. Castagneto Carducci is the nearest town of any size and it isn't
large. In fact it provided us with one of the big surprises of our trip,
Wednesday night we went there for dinner and the first two restaurants we tried
were full, unheard of in our Italian experience to date. Turns out
to be a very popular spot with German tourists. 
This is one of the several buildings at La Tenuta Bandita, a former farm located
on 150m acres. Three or four of the buildings have been converted to
bedrooms. This one of the two pools. 
The view from the pool. 
Sassetta, which is the nearest town.
On the drive north we saw signs for the
ferry to Elba Island and decided to give it a try so on Tuesday we drove down to
Grossetto and caught the ferry. Elba has quite a few beautiful
beaches 
such as this. It was also the home, briefly, of Napoleon. This was
his town house. 
One of the harbors on Elba. 
Tuesday was a lie around the pool day. Lunch coming from a small store in Sassetta, cheese, salumi, and bread.