The Maremma occupies all of southwest Tuscany along the Tyrrhenian Sea and is home to marshland, pine groves, dunes, hills covered with maquis, brackish plains, forests of oak and even a low mountain dotted with villages built out of the tufa - natural landscapes that provide a habitat for an exceptional array of wildlife. This region, which malaria isolated from the rest of Italy until very recently, has retained its own engaging personality, which is quite different to the rest of Tuscany.