It always the marina in Rio Nell'Elba, but in 1889, since he had assumed more importance in the village of origin, it was decided to separate 19 sq km from the ancient to establish one new town.
Rio Marina is situated mining areas port from which, since time immemorial, they left the ships full of iron ore to feed its furnaces Populonia during the Etruscan and finally, in the first half of the twentieth century , the blast furnaces of Piombino and Portoferraio.
The harbor is dominated by a hexagonal tower built in 1534 by James V Appiani, Lord of Piombino, and very interesting personality. In the village there is a and historic mining museum where you can leave for a visit to the old mining sites.
This is certainly the most interesting part of Rio Marina, is open quarries where the land takes on incredible colors, shimmers in amazing landscapes that seem of another planet. Anyone, even the most distracted, can view and take home a piece of hematite, the most attentive of pyrite or quartz, but are more than 150 species in this mining district, some found for the first time here.
The beaches of this town are very specific, mostly made ​​up of brilliant sand with micro crystals of hematite and pebbles of all colors. Find common residues of ancient iron workings in the form of small stones blacks from specific gravity very unusual if they did not contain a good amount of iron.
Among the many beaches of Rio Marina, we might remember that the fraction of cable, the point of the island nearest the mainland, with its small harbor is definitely a place founded on a simple but pleasant social life.