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This summer, 2025 July, we decided to go to Italy for the first time ever as a family. We booked a few days at Lake Garda and after that with a rental car we made our way South to our proper beach holiday destination: Tirrenia, near Pisa in Tuscany (15km from Pisa). This area was also very new to us, having only visited Pisa before. We chose the Continental Resort, because it offered apartments for 4-6 people as well (which we always prefer when on holiday as opposed to hotel rooms), the pool looked great and the resort is located right on a gorgeous, stretchy, sandy beach. What could possible go wrong? Well, hint-hint: nothing went wrong. It was all fab. Read my review below – hopefully it will help you to learn more about the Continental Resort and its amenities, as well as the area – in case you are looking to stay in this corner of Tuscany.
About the location: Tirrenia
Now, this is a very interesting story. Well, I find it interesting. Tirrenia is an artificially created holiday village during the fascist era of Italy, in the 1930s. Mussolini himself used to call it “The Pearl of the Mediterranean Sea.” Pretty chilling past to a beautiful place. As a result, you’ll see a lot of features around that still screams brutalism mixed with late art deco. Some of the architecture is still standing, 100 years later and is preserved. Fascinating. After these dark years, Camp Darby a US military was established and thus, American families arrived in the area and many remained in Italy.
Tirrenia refers to the Tyrrhenian Sea and the holiday village stretches all the way between Marina di Pisa and Livorno’s busy nautical port. The holiday village or rather town on the seaside consists of miles and miles of hotels, resorts and camp sites. Each and every one of them are accompanied by a “bagno” meaning beach, but not all of them, some of them are just private bagnos and private clubs for locals with membership. They all have a wonderful huge gate you can spot from the mai road displaying the bagno’s name. These all look very 1930s in size and style. The main road is also very grandiose: wide and with flowering plants planted in the middle.
There are many great restaurants in the area, also shops, cafes, hotels, bars, a luna park (night time amusement park), a waterpark (looking quite small but we didn’t try it), a golf course and more. All pretty much walking distance from the Continental Resort.
About Contiental Resort
Conveniently located right in the middle of Tirrenia and right on the beachfront, the Continental Resort is huge, with air-conditioned apartments of 1-2 rooms and also hotel rooms in a different building. The apartments are in one storey buildings, built fairly recently – you want to book the ground floor apartments, rather than the ones on the first floor, because they have a little outdoor space. No sea views for the apartments. Breakfast service at extra cost or the you have the choice of self catering as the apartments are fully equipped with kitchen (no dishwasher, though. For some reason no wine glasses either). Communal, self-service washing machines at the price of EUR 3.-, which we also used once.
In the price of the apartment the beach services and pool usage is included: 1 umbrella + 2 deckchairs per apartment. Lifeguards on site.
Olympic size swimming pool as well as a small pool for little kids – no frills, slides sprinkles or anything, though. Lifeguards on site, but they let the children to have fun and dive, play with balls and inflatables in the pool. One and is shallow and the other one is deep water. There is also a small bar by the pool with burgers and paninis and soft or alcoholic drinks. So you can have your Aperol-Spritz by the pool, since you’re on hols in Italy.
At the beach club – that also have local members, so it’s not just for hotel guests – you can get more deckchairs than what’s allocated , but this is for a fee. There is a restaurant and bar with daily menu (prices are very reasonable and food was good), you can play giant chess, beach volleyball and there is a playground. for the kiddos You can rent surf and bodyboards, SAP and more. It all looks very chic and modern with white drapes and tasteful decor. Near the beach club, there are toilets and showers plus a covered space to play table tennis and table football. The beach club restaurant doubles as an event venue, so on our arrival night, which was Saturday, there was an actual wedding with music we could hear from the room. In Italy, the music doesn’t stop at 10pm or even midnight…rightly so, by the way. Luckily, it wasn’t too loud, so we could sleep.
The beach itself is huge, you can walk miles and miles if you fancy, through other bagnos – they aren’t separated from each other. The water is shallow, so it is really ideal for families with young kids. They even have some beach toys available if you ask the beach club staff – things that previous guests left behind. The water was also warm, warmer than the pool water. In the afternoon, around 3pm the tide goes out and you get some waves – enough to use the boards but not too strong to properly surf.
The complex also has a main restaurant (Beny’s Bar) next to the reception – we didn’t try this, looked like open and busy every day.
Day trips from the resort
We have visited quite a few nice places nearby in the beautiful Tuscany:
- Pisa
- Marina di Pisa (great food options)
- Livorno (not much to see)
- Volterra (absolutely stunning, but an hour and a bit drive each way)
- Lucca (worth a whole day)
What we thought about it
All in all, we really enjoyed our stay, but we are used to this sort of independent accommodation types like self-catering apartments, so we know the drill. We arrive with already having stopped at a nearby, large supermarket, shopped for two full days of dine-ins, breakfast items and we make sure, we have checked what cleaning items we will find in the kitchen and bathroom. In this case we had to buy everything. This is all ok, when you know this in advance.
So make sure you have or buy before you arrive, because the resort don’t supply you with:
- soap/shower gel and shampoo
- toilet paper (they only give you one roll for a week)
- beach towels
- washing up liquid
- sponge
- tea towel
- bin liner (although we just used the biodegradable shopping bags we got from the supermarket)
- laundry detergent if you intend to use the laundry machines
We booked the largest apartment option: two bedroom apartment that sleeps 6 – although it only really sleeps 4. It has decent bedrooms, but they count the small couch in the dining room/living space as a bed for 2 people. That’s a bit of a stretch, in my opinion.
The pros
The apartment is big, plenty of bedroom space for both of the bedrooms equally, bathroom space is also adequate as well as the joint kitchen and dining area. Small “garden” (the receptionist called it garden) – a little outdoor space with plastic tables and chairs for the ground floor apartments. The resort isn’t guarded but gated and by car it’s only accessible by entering through the security gate. We found everything spotlessly clean when we checked in and maintained nicely.
The second biggest pro is, that the resort is right on the beach, in fact, it took us about 4 minutes walking out of our apartment to reach the sea. The pool is also great, our children had good fun, they were perfectly happy without waterpark features.
We did get 4 large and 4 small decent, hotel quality towels (which then I washed in the communal laundry machine every 2-3 days) as well as sheets and bedding. The communal washing machine is open all day and it’s not busy. To use it, it costs EUR 3.- per load. You will need to buy laundry detergent yourself. (I normally carry 3-4 sheets of eco laundry detergent sheets with me as they hardly take up any space or weigh anything – perfect for holidays.)
At the resort, they recycle their rubbish properly and so you have different, small bins labelled accordingly inside the apartment to use for this – and you empty them yourself whenever you need to, at the main bins.
The resort is in the middle of Tirrenia village, there are supermarkets, shops, cafes and restaurants within a few minutes walk. I highly recommend Gulliver, which has a very traditional Italian kitchen with local seafood specialities and pizzas. Superb service and quality of food at a reasonable price. There’s also a small Luna Park in walking distance, which we tried out. Not much, but enough for an hour or two entertainment after dinner.
Stray cats – they are being fed by the main restaurant. Some of them are friendly and the kids loved them around. Otherwise, they won’t come near you.
Plenty of parking space available on the resort grounds.
Pets are allowed (for a fee). Someone around us had their CAT with them!
The cons
There isn’t room cleaning or room service at all. You do it all yourself. Maybe for extra fee. You also don’t get more than what they supply you with at check-in: no extra towels, no extra toilet paper.
The Wifi works well in the apartment – however, annoyingly the number of devices are limited to 4. This is enough for a regular family, but since I was the 5th one trying to join with my computer – and I’m the only one working as a digital nomad, so Internet access is non-negotiable for me – I could’t. I had to use my roaming for work. Not ideal. Also no Wifi around the pool. (Which isn’t an issue.)
On foot, practically anyone can walk into the resort grounds.
If you book a single hotel room for 2 adults and 2 kids for a week – unlikely you’ll enjoy your stay. We met people around the pool complaining that even with one child it was proving to be a challenge. To be fair, a hotel room is meant for 2 people max. Otherwise, it’s just too small.
The reception only opens at 10am, then they go on siesta in the afternoon and no one can be found around in the evening either. So when you check in – make sure, it’s not too late. No brochures, maps or local information at the reception.
No airport shuttle, you will need to rent a car if you fly into Pisa Airport or Train Station.
No spa or gym.
The verdict
All in all, we found that all the facilities were well maintained, attentive and happy to explain things in a friendly way. Everyone speaks some English too.
We would definitely book here again.