Instead of the Leaning Tower of Pisa: the Tuscany of monuments without crowds

The Leaning Tower of Pisa holds up for half a day: half-hour queues to climb it, Piazza dei Miracoli crossed by thousands of selfie sticks, and the feeling of having seen the postcard more than the city. If you're looking for an alternative to the Leaning Tower of Pisa that gives Tuscany back to you without the crush, the region is full of monuments just as powerful and almost empty. All it takes is a car, a few extra kilometres and the desire to look beyond the logo.

Abbeys and castles

Let's start with the monument that on its own is worth the trip: the abbey of San Galgano, at Chiusdino, in the Siena area. A thirteenth-century Cistercian church left without a roof, its Gothic arches framing the sky and grass in place of a floor. Just above, in the chapel of Montesiepi, is the sword thrust into the rock attributed to Galgano Guidotti: the legend of Excalibur, but real and Tuscan. The finest photographs are taken early in the morning, before the coaches arrive from Siena. You'll find it recounted in San Galgano: the roofless abbey and the sword in the stone.

If it's the lean that strikes you in the Tower of Pisa, that crooked verticality, then it's worth moving to the Valdarno for the castle of Sammezzano, at Reggello: a delirium of Moorish halls, horseshoe arches and coloured majolica built in the nineteenth century. It is under restoration and today you can't go in (reopening is expected in a few years, after the works to make it safe), but the historic park and the Balze del Valdarno around it repay the detour. The story of the building and of the landscape that surrounds it is in Sammezzano and the Balze: the Moorish castle of the Valdarno.

The tufa Maremma

The tufa Maremma is the other monumental Tuscany that mass tourism almost always skips. The Vie Cave around Sovana and Sorano are corridors up to twenty-five metres deep carved into the rock by the Etruscans: you walk at the bottom of a tufa gorge, among moss and carvings, and you understand that certain monuments are not visited, they are walked through. The route between Pitigliano and Sovana is about eight kilometres long and touches necropolises like the Ildebranda Tomb. It's all in The Vie Cave of Sovana, the corridors carved into the tufa.

A few minutes away is Pitigliano, the "Little Jerusalem" clinging to a spur of tufa, with its Jewish quarter, the Medici aqueduct and the rock-carved lanes called murra. It is spectacular in the evening, when the buses have gone and the crag lights up: Between murra and courtyards, the secret face of Pitigliano. Still in the Maremma, for a walled stone village without even a souvenir shop, there is Pereta, the little walled village of the hilly Maremma.

Those who won't give up water will find an alternative to the crowded thermal baths at Saturnia: the Cascata del Mulino, with its travertine pools at 37 degrees, is free and always open, but it should be experienced at dawn, when the steam rises in the cold and there is almost no one about. The timing advice, with the practical details, is in Saturnia at dawn: the Cascata del Mulino before the crowds.

Florence without queues

Florence too has its no-queue version. While people wait in the sun in front of the Uffizi, a stone's throw from the Duomo the Chiostro dello Scalzo preserves a cycle of monochrome frescoes by Andrea del Sarto, in a courtyard where you are usually the only visitor: The Chiostro dello Scalzo, a black-and-white masterpiece in the heart of Florence. And next to the crowds of the Accademia queuing for the David, the Botanical Garden and the cloisters of San Marco offer an almost private oasis: the Giardino dei Semplici and the silent courtyards of San Marco.

To finish with a whole village, climb up to Anghiari, in the Valtiberina: steep lanes, artisan workshops, a square where the battle Leonardo was to fresco was fought. It is the kind of dispersed monument, made of stone and crafts, that Tuscany knows how to offer everywhere except where the coaches arrive: walking up to Anghiari.

The rule, in the end, is simple: keep Pisa for an hour of photos if you really must, then drive thirty minutes in any direction. Roofless abbeys, Moorish castles, Etruscan gorges and frescoed courtyards await you with no timed ticket and no queue.