How the Index is made.

The Versilia Index began in 2024 as a private spreadsheet — a bored lawyer's attempt to organise a decade of summer trips to the Tuscan coast and stop re-Googling the same three trattorie. The spreadsheet grew, and at a certain point it seemed wasteful to keep it to ourselves. This website is that spreadsheet, lightly rewritten.

Editorial independence

The Index has no advertisers, no sponsors, and no affiliate links that pay per click. We do not accept press trips, comped meals, or discounted accommodations. When an entry recommends a bathing club or a gelateria, we paid like everyone else.

We do not publish negative reviews of specific small businesses — if a place is not recommended, it is simply absent from the Index. We find this cleaner than the alternative.

Methodology

Every entry is visited at least twice before inclusion, in different seasons where relevant. Prices are verified within ninety days of publication. Transit times are timed end-to-end with a stopwatch, including the walk from the platform to the street. Entries are revised in May and October of each year; the date of last revision appears in each entry's metadata panel.

Where opening hours are unstable — and on the Versilia coast, they often are — we state the rule rather than the timetable. "Closed Mondays in winter, open daily from Easter" tends to hold up better than "hours: 9:00–19:00."

Corrections

We maintain a corrections log for each issue. If a listed price is wrong, a phone number has changed, a restaurant has shut, or a train no longer stops where the Index says it does, write in. Corrections are applied without fanfare; meaningful ones are noted in the next edition's masthead.

What we do not cover

Large hotels. Chain restaurants. Nightclubs. Anything requiring a yacht. These things exist on the Versilia and they are well catalogued elsewhere — we have nothing useful to add. The Index is a directory of small, durable places, not a comprehensive guide.

Typography & production

Set in Arvo (display) and Work Sans (text). Arvo was released in 2010 by the Estonian type designer Anton Koovit; Work Sans by Wei Huang in 2014. Both are open-source. The site is served as static HTML with no analytics and no tracking. Images are licensed from Pexels or taken by the Index.

Contact

For corrections, suggestions for future entries, or copies of the price log: editor at this domain. We read every letter; we reply to most within two weeks. Please do not send press releases — we will not open them.

— The Editors
Viareggio, April 2026