Seaside villages in Italy
 

We are going to Italy in mid May, mature backpackers. We are particularly interested in visiting small seaside villages that are not too commercialised but still fairly easy to reach via train or bus. Any suggestions?

Which part of Italy?

How small do you want the villages to be? I'd recommend Cefalu but it's larger than a small village. There were not many people there in May so although there are probably lots of people in the summer it was quiet in May. It's easily reached via train from Palermo.

Do you want the villages to have shops and restaurants or small enough to only contain houses?

Italy has thousands of miles of coastline, so you might have to be a bit more specific!

The best answer, as usual, it's "it depends on what you are looking for".
If your high interest is about swimming and relax and you are not interest about nightlife nor in visiting monuments or so, you should visit island Sardinia, in the South area. In a little village as Pula, for example, which can be reached just by car from Cagliari, you can experience the wildest side of Sardinia and get in touch with an amazing native culture. Pula has got sexy beaches where you can practice diving and snorkeling. If you need some suggestion about accommodation you can try to have a look at this http://www.hotelbaiadinora.com/en/ho...-sardinia.html

The Italian Riviera has a train line with a station in every village between the Tuscan border and France. If you get the Cadogan guide to the Italian Riveria & Piemonte, you can read about every single one of them. In mid-May, if you get off the train at a town and decide you don't like it, you can get back on the train and go to another one. From the coastal towns, there is terrific bus service up into the hills, which produce a lot of olive oil and vegetables, and there are amazing hilltowns to visit. Again, you can read all about it in the Cadogan guide.

It is hard to beat the italian Riviera for hidden gems with good public transportation access.