Just back from a week and a bit in elba, had no real expectations, we'd enjoyed lerici last year near the cinque terre and having spent plenty of time in tuscany we thought we'd try tuscan beach life.
we found marciana marina though trip advisor , wanted a simple hotel on a B&B basis as we prefer to dine out .
fairly straightforward trip, flight to pisa, hire car drive to piombino, pick up a ticket for the ferry and then hour trip on the ferry to porto ferraio, marciana marina then c. 30 mins easy drive.
hotel is situated, as expected, near the end of the marina (there is a one way system, it's literally the first right hand junction into MM and then drive along the sea front to the end, then left up to the hotel).
there's no car parking at the hotel, but there is free parking 2 minutes away on an adjacent street where we left our hire car no problem.
hotel staff very friendly and helpful, most speak good to excellent english and reception always manned, they always knew our room number and you felt like a valued guest at all times.
i took my bike and they had an underground garage to store it in (no charge) which was very useful.
our room didn't have a balcony but was a good size and a fairly big bathroom too. aircon was efficient so room was comfortable temperature.
cleaning staff very efficient, room was immaculate and plenty of towels etc all replaced as you needed.
breakfast comprehensive italian style buffet, plus coffee etc made to choice cappucino, latte etc.
hotel has no real grounds or outdoor space but beach/seafront is literally at the end of the street c.5 mins walk, and all the restaurants/shops are in comfortable walking distance, max 15 - 20 mins walk to the other end of the resort.
elsewhere in town there's 4 pay beaches all in walking distance, we used capo nord usually on a half day basis, usually paying 10 -12 e for an afternoon (we were often out until 19.30) 2 bed and an umbrella. others were 15e a day but without toilet , shower and capo nord even had a nice coir carpet over the rocks into the sea and sand bags into the sea to save your feet!
there's plenty of restaurants and pizzerias, nearly all seafood based. in the square we particuarly enjoyed vecchia marina - excellent wood fired pizza's and good friendly staff, especially karin a very talented linguist i think she spoke fluently to virtually every guest no matter where from.
for seafod we also liked 'rendezvous' on the sea front so very popular, worth popping in during the day to reserve or eat 9.30 - 10.00 pm as a walk in .
there was also a free open air jazz festival on in the town so that was a pleasant diversion on an evening too.
i don't go away looking for lots of things to do, i take my bike usually and do a couple of hours in the morning then have lunch, beach, dinner, repeat. In that respect the lovely surroundings of marciana marina fitted perfectly. It wasn't too busy but had enough variety a lovely low key italian beach resort.
- Yacht Hotel Marciana Marina
