Pasha Glam Dog Beach: Sand Reclaimed From a Vanished Lake

Italy | Tuscany | Piombino | Gulf of Follonica

The ground beneath Pasha Glam Dog Beach was marshland for most of its recorded history, part of what locals called Lake of Piombino, a wetland the Medici first attempted to drain through hydraulic works in 1558. The job wasn’t finished until 1831 and 1832, when Grand Duke Leopoldo II ordered the lake completely filled using sediment dredged from the nearby Cornia River, part of a much larger campaign to reclaim Tuscany’s saline marshes for agriculture. Before that transformation, the area supported a genuinely unusual mix of economic activities alongside farming and sheep grazing, sea salt production, fishing, hunting, and the gathering of leeches, harvested here specifically for medicinal use. Watchtowers still punctuate this stretch of coast too, the oldest, Torre Mozza, built in the first half of the sixteenth century as part of the same defensive network protecting against Saracen raids that shaped so much of this coastline’s history.

The park’s more recent past involved a genuinely hard-fought civil battle. Starting in the 1970s, illegal development divided parts of Sterpaia into small, unauthorized lots despite explicit building prohibitions, and it took decades of sustained local pressure before the Comune di Piombino successfully reclaimed the land for protected public use, the same effort that eventually made a beach this thoroughly dog-friendly possible at all.

Fine Golden Sand Behind Genuine Coastal Forest

Pasha Glam sits within the Sterpaia Coastal Park, roughly 300 hectares of dunes and dense pinewood stretching between Piombino and Follonica, and I found the sand here genuinely fine and clean, free of the sharp pebbles that make some Tuscan beaches harder on paws. The beach’s connection to genuine, protected forest, oaks, tamarisks, cork oaks, and ash trees among the older growth, gave the whole approach a considerably wilder feel than most organized lidos manage.

A Gentle, Shallow Entry Built for Every Dog

The sandy seabed here descends at a remarkably slow gradient, and I found this genuinely well suited to dogs of every size and confidence level, small breeds and senior dogs wading in comfortably alongside more enthusiastic swimmers. The water held a translucent turquoise and emerald clarity on calm days, clear enough to see the rippled sand beneath even a fair distance from shore.

A VIP Lounge Without the Usual Restrictions

What sets Pasha Glam apart is the genuine absence of hourly swimming restrictions common at many Italian dog beaches, dogs free to roam and swim throughout the day rather than confined to specific windows. I found the VIP lounge area a genuinely comfortable base for a full day, plenty of space between loungers for dogs to settle without crowding neighboring groups.

Spaghetti allo Scoglio With a Treat for the Dog Too

The on-site beach bar served genuinely good spaghetti allo scoglio and grilled local fish, and I found the pet treats offered alongside the usual gelato and cold drinks a small, thoughtful touch. As afternoon shifted toward evening, the same terrace filled for aperitivo, a chilled Vermentino in hand while music played softly over the gulf.

Getting There and Settling In

Pasha Glam sits in Località Perelli, reached from the SS1 Aurelia’s Venturina/Piombino exit by following the regional road toward Riotorto and Perelli, with local signs directing traffic toward Sterpaia and Località Perelli 1; paid parking runs along the access roads, a short flat walk through the pine forest leading to the sand, and Autolinee Toscane buses running between Piombino and Follonica stop at the Perelli/Sterpaia junction. Anyone touring the wider Piombino coast will find Calamoresca Piombino and Spiaggia di Baratti Populonia both within the same municipality, each offering considerably more historical weight than Sterpaia’s own reclaimed marshland setting.

Standing Where a Lake Used to Be

By the time I left Pasha Glam on my last evening, the dogs had mostly tired themselves out, and I thought about that vanished lake beneath the sand, drained and filled by two separate generations of Tuscan rulers centuries apart, the leech-gatherers who once worked this exact ground replaced now by nothing more demanding than an ordinary, cheerful afternoon of fetch.