A meeting with Buffalo Bill’s cowboys

Buffalo Bill was a hero of the Far West but also a great businessman and entertainer: he created his personal circus of the West and took it around America and Europe, complete with cowboys and rodeo, red Indian and bison, fake attacks on caravans and reconstructions of the last battle of Custer. Among its cast were the great Sioux chief Sitting Bull (the real one) and Calamity Jane (equally real). In London, the show thrilled Queen Victoria. The circus came to Italy twice, in 1890 and in 1906; on the first occasion an equestrian skill challenge was organized between the cowboys of Texas and the cowboys of the Agro Pontino, and the cowboys won; thanks to this statement some of them were added to the international tour.
In Italy the cowboys still exist. In this summer of proximity tourism, an opportunity to attend one of their shows and to come into contact with their business is a visit to the “Il Marruchetone” farm in Maremma; in an exhibition that embraces history, tradition and culture, some cowboys show off their skills riding Maremma horses. This is one of the attractions proposed by “The Sense Experience Resort” (4 stars) in Follonica (Grosseto). By the sea and equipped with a heated swimming pool (which allows, if desired, to extend the bathing season until September-October) the resort offers not only the stay but also, programmatically, some of those “experiences” that are the current frontier of tourism: among the activities of “The Sense Experience Resort”, bicycle tours to discover the surroundings, also from a food and wine point of view, trekking with picnic on the uncontaminated Accesa lake, golf matches, kite surfing, diving with or without cylinders, motorboat tours of the Tuscan archipelago, gymnastic and yoga activities, but also (more simply) sun and baths on the 250-meter private beach and walks in a 5-hectare pine forest.

The Follonica resort belongs to the Icon Collection catalog, which offers three other structures:

– Park Hotel Marinetta (4 stars) in Marina di Bibbona (Livorno)

– Antico Podere S. Francesco (Farmhouse) in Rosignano Marittimo (Livorno)

– Borgo Verde (Farmhouse) in Vada (Livorno)