Instead of Florence: Arezzo, the City of Piero della Francesca off the Tourist Circuit

While Florence wrestles with capped entry tickets and anti-picnic regulations, Arezzo wears its beauty naturally. The city that gave birth to Petrarch and Vasari holds one of the most important fresco cycles in the Italian Renaissance — Piero della Francesca's work in the Basilica of San Francesco — and you can admire it with an easy booking and a ticket costing just a few euros.

The Legend of the True Cross is an absolute masterpiece: Piero's geometric light, faces suspended in time, perspectival architectures that have influenced generations of artists. Standing alone before these walls, in the silence of the chapel, is an experience you could never have at the Uffizi.

Piazza Grande is Arezzo's drawing room: irregular, sloping, surrounded by buildings from different eras that come together in a harmonious, living ensemble. The Vasari loggia, the Palazzo della Fraternita dei Laici, the medieval tower — everything converges in a space that, on the first weekend of every month, becomes the largest antiques market in Italy. Stalls of furniture, prints, ceramics and silverware fill the piazza and the surrounding streets, and the atmosphere is that of a popular festival, not a tourist event.

The Duomo, perched on the highest hill, contains a Magdalene by Piero della Francesca and stained glass windows by Guillaume de Marcillat that flood the nave with blue light. The Fortezza Medicea just above offers a view that sweeps the entire Valdichiana to Lake Trasimeno.

Arezzo is also the city of Benigni's La vita è bella, filmed among these streets and squares. But unlike many film locations that have become tourist traps, life here continues as before: bars serve coffee for a euro, trattorias offer acquacotta and scottiglia at honest prices, and in the evening the passeggiata along Corso Italia belongs to the residents, not the visitors.

From Arezzo you can easily reach the Val di Chiana, Cortona, the Casentino with its sacred forests of Camaldoli and La Verna, and even Siena in an hour. It's the ideal base for a slow, authentic Tuscany — far from the tour buses and the selfie sticks.

Practical guides for Arezzo

• Where to stay in Arezzo
• What to see in Arezzo in 2 days
• Where to eat in Arezzo
• How to get to Arezzo