Livorno

The train station is 2km easterly of the centre; take city bus #1 or #2 to Piazza Grande. ATL buses from Piombino drop off on Piazza Grande; Lazzi buses from Florence, Pisa and Lucca arrive on Piazza Manin. The tourist office is just off Via Cairoli at Piazza Cavour 6 (Mon-Fri 9am-1pm, Tues & Thurs also 3-5pm; tel 0586.898.111, www.livorno.turismo.toscana.it ). The best hotel is the eighteenth-century villa La Vedetta , on the Montenero hill at Via della Lecceta 20 (tel & fax 0586.579957, www.tuscany.net/vedetta ; L150,000-200,000/¬77.47-103.29), with modern decor, parking, and spectacular panoramic views. Livorno has a rash of cheap hotels, some of which - around the harbour and station - are grim dives. Milano , Via degli Asili 48 (tel 0586.219.155, fax 0586.219.129; L60,000-90,000/¬30.99-46.48) is a pleasant exception. Villa Morazzana is a hostel in the hills, Via di Collinet 86 (tel 0586.500.076, fax 0586.502.426; L25,000/¬12.91). The campsite Miramare , Via del Littorale 220 (tel 0586.580.402, fax 0586.883.338, gallirisaliti@liternet.it ; May-Sept), is a short way south of town.

Italians travel to Livorno just to take seafood and, specifically, to feast on the local dish cacciucco , a spicy seafood stew served with garlic toast. A choice restaurant if you can spare L70,000/¬36.15 per head is Le Chiave , Scali delle Cantine (tel 0586.888.609; closed Wed). There are dozens of more inexpensive options: Antico Moro , Via Bertelloni 59 (tel 0586.884.659; closed Mon-Sat lunch and all day Wed) is a pleasant locals’ haunt with excellent cacciucco. Café d’Etoile , Via Indipendenza 13 (closed Sun), is a breezy café off Piazza Cavour serving fresh salads and snacks. On Venezia’s canalsides you’ll find the captivating couscous-house Mediterraneo , Scali Ponte di Marmo 14 (closed Tues), and The Barge , a waterside pub with English beers and food, Scali Ancore 6 (closed Sun).

There are dozens of ferry sailings from Livorno, to Corsica (Bastia or Porto Vecchio), Sardinia (Olbia, Golfo Aranci or Cagliari), Sicily (Palermo) and the Tuscan islands. Nearly all ferries to Corsica and Sardinia leave from alongside the Stazione Marittima , west of the centre behind the Fortezza Vecchia, although some (and boats to Sicily) depart from Varco Galvani , a long way west of town. Ferries to Capraia and Elba leave from the central Porto Mediceo . Check with the tourist office and the companies themselves for times and prices, and reserve well ahead in summer. If you’re taking a car to Sardinia, most companies offer discount deals if you cross to Corsica and drive the 180km to the southern tip of the island - often this means the subsequent ferry to Sardinia is free. For a full list of ferries to Sardinia and to Elba .

Ferry Companies

Corsica Ferries , Stazione Marittima, Calata Carrara (tel 019.215.511, www.corsicaferries.com ). To Bastia (Corsica). Corsica Marittima , Stazione Marittima, Calata Carrara (tel 0586.210.507, www.corsicamarittima.com ). To Bastia and Porto Vecchio (Corsica).

Etruria Shipping , Porto Mediceo (tel 0586.263.319). To Portoferraio (Elba).

Grandi Navi Veloci (Grimaldi) , Varco Galvani, Calata Tripoli, Porto Nuovo (tel 010.589.331, www.grimaldi.it ). To Palermo (Sicily).

Lloyd Sardegna/Linea dei Golfi , Varco Galvani, Calata Assab, Porto Industriale (tel 0565.222.300, www.lloydsardegna.it ). To Olbia and Cagliari (Sardinia).

Moby Lines , Stazione Marittima, Calata Carrara (tel 0586.826.823, www.mobylines.it ). To Bastia (Corsica) and Olbia (Sardinia).

Sardinia Ferries , Stazione Marittima, Calata Carrara (tel 019.215.511, www.sardiniaferries.com ). To Golfo Aranci (Sardinia).

Toremar , Porto Mediceo (tel 0586.896.113, www.toremar.it ). To Capraia.

LIVORNO , 18km southwest of Pisa, is Tuscany’s third largest city and one of Italy’s largest ports - a position which invited blanket bombing during World War II. Its rebuilt commercial centre is not pretty, but a poke around the back streets will reveal a network of picturesque canals and hump-backed bridges, a lively streetlife that benefits from a very un-Tuscan ethnic diversity, and plenty of places to sample top-quality seafood . What you won’t find are the very things Tuscany is famous for: art, structure and tourists. Livorno’s port was developed under the Medici . In 1618, they declared it a free port and instituted a liberal constitution which prompted an influx of Jews, Greeks, Spanish Muslims, English Catholics and a cosmopolitan throng of other refugees. Livorno flourished, and attracted a community of English expatriates (including Shelley) whose cack-handed anglicization of the city’s study into Leghorn is still in use.

The old Porto Mediceo , has fishing boats spilling back into the canal quarter and unfortunately often a cruise liner blocking the view out to sea. Sangallo’s Fortezza Vecchia flanks the harbour, about 100m north of Livorno’s sole surviving nod to Renaissance art - the statue of the Quattro Mori , overlooking the busy waterfront road at Piazza Micheli. This bizarre work decorates an inept 1595 statue of Ferdinando I with the addition of four chained Moors by Pietro Tacca (1623), tacked on either as a celebration of the success of Tuscan raids against North African shipping, or merely as slaves cowering beneath Medici glory. Either way they stand as a poignant and shocking harbourside symbol for this multiracial city. The Museo Civico Giovanni Fattori , devoted to Fattori and the late-nineteenth-century Macchiaioli movement, Italy’s milk-and-water version of Impressionism, is housed in the extravagant Villa Mimbelli, 1km south at Via San Jacopo in Acquaviva 65 (Tues-Sun 10am-1pm & 4-7pm; L8000/¬4.13; bus #1).

The broad Via Grande heads inland to Piazza Grande , which features the Duomo , a postwar reconstruction. Via Cairoli curls around the duomo and partway along, Via Buontalenti leads off to the ochre Mercato Centrale that stands at the heart of a boisterous street-market. The canal near here was the limit of the Medici port city; follow it northeast to the grotesque treeless expanse of Piazza della Repubblica on one side, and Piazza XX Settembre on the other. The latter is the home of the Mercatino Americano - a cultural endowment of stationed American troops - that sells army surplus clothing, fishing and camping gear and flick-knives. From the Mercato Centrale, Via della vocalist strikes north into the Venezia district, Livorno’s most captivating quarter, with crumbling old tenement buildings and the Fortezza Nuova ringed around by a network of quiet canals. August sees the area come alive for the Effetto Venezia , a free street carnival of talking and world music.

Bus #2 from the station and Piazza Grande curls up to the hilltop Santuario di Montenero , 6km south, which was a pilgrimage site long before the marshes below were populated. A clutch of stalls and cafés surrounds the eighteenth-century church , and you’ll find quiet footpaths and plenty of vantage points. Last bus down is at 8.45pm daily.