Tuscany away from the crowds: hidden villages beyond the classic destinations
Lesser-known hidden villages of Tuscany: Etruscan tufa, the Maremma, the Valdarno and secret corners of Florence beyond the classic destinations.
Foto: lo.tangelini (CC BY-SA 4.0) — Flickr
Anyone looking for lesser-known hidden villages in Tuscany usually sets off already tired of the queues: the line to climb the tower in San Gimignano, the impossible-to-find parking in Siena on weekends in May, the coaches unloading hundreds of people in the square at noon. And yet you only need to move a few dozen kilometres from the postcard destinations to find a Tuscany made of stone, tufa and real silence, where you step into a church without a ticket and lunch in a trattoria chatting with whoever is cooking. This guide gathers the places we use as bases to build different itineraries: the Etruscan south, the hilly Maremma, the Valdarno and even a side-street Florence that almost no visitor knows.
The tufa country
We start with the most scenic corner, the tufa country on the border with Lazio. Here the villages are quite literally sculpted into spurs of volcanic rock. Pitigliano, perched on a ridge and nicknamed "little Jerusalem" for its historic Jewish community, should be seen at sunset from the belvedere of the Madonna delle Grazie and then walked through on foot among the cellars carved into the rock and the ghetto. A few kilometres away is its younger sister: Sovana and its Vie Cave, corridors up to twenty metres high hand-carved by the Etruscans into the tufa, leading to the necropolis and the Ildebranda Tomb. Anyone with an extra day completes the triangle with Sorano, the "Matera of Tuscany", with no need to book anything.
The hilly Maremma
Going down towards the sea, the hilly Maremma offers tiny walled villages that are almost depopulated. Pereta, a hamlet of Magliano in Toscana, is a ring of medieval walls with a clock tower and a handful of stone houses: you reach it through vineyards and olive groves, and in an hour you've seen it all. It's the ideal stop to break the dash towards the beaches of the Argentario, pausing where others carry straight on. Still in this part of Tuscany, some twenty kilometres from the tufa country, it's worth planning your arrival at Saturnia at dawn: the free thermal pools of the Cascata del Mulino are gorgeous and cost nothing, but by day they're taken by storm. Turning up at seven in the morning completely changes the experience.
On the other side of the region, in the eastern Apennines, lies the Valtiberina, borderland with Umbria and the Marche. Anghiari is won by climbing on foot up the steep street that cuts through the old centre, among genuine artisan workshops and the plain of the famous battle that Leonardo was meant to paint. It's a village that still lives on trades and markets, not on souvenirs. From here you can easily reach the Casentino, with its castles and its abbeys in the woods, for anyone who wants to extend the itinerary inland.
San Galgano
In the agricultural heart of the region, between Siena and the coast, stands one of the most powerful images of minor Tuscany: San Galgano, a Gothic Cistercian abbey left without a roof, with the sky in place of the vaults and grass in place of the floor. On the hill above, in the round chapel of Montesiepi, there is a real sword driven into the rock. It's less than an hour from Siena yet stays surprisingly quiet on weekdays.
Moving north, in the Valdarno between Florence and Arezzo, hides an absolute extravagance: the castle of Sammezzano, a Moorish-Orientalist palace with halls painted in a thousand colours, today closed and open only on special occasions, set in a historic park. Nearby are the Balze, clay gullies that recall desert landscapes: an unexpected pairing half an hour from Florence airport.
Side-street Florence
And Florence itself, the most visited city in Tuscany, keeps corners where the noise fades away. A few steps from the crush, the Chiostro dello Scalzo guards a cycle of monochrome frescoes by Andrea del Sarto, often visited in complete solitude. A stone's throw from the Accademia, the Giardino dei Semplici and the courtyards of San Marco offer the oldest botanical garden in the city and silent cloisters while outside people queue for the David.
If these nine places aren't enough, hidden Tuscany goes on: Isola Santa, a stone fishing village looking out over an emerald lake in the wild Garfagnana; the Lunigiana of Pontremoli, Bagnone and Verrucola, land of the Malaspina castles; the Pratomagno and its villages up in the hills in summer. They're the pieces with which we build the blog's slowest itineraries, far from the queues and close to the Tuscany you truly live.
Practical guides for Arezzo
Practical info
When is the best time to visit Tuscany away from the crowds?
The recommended time is March, April, May, June, September, October and November, when it is less crowded.
Where is Tuscany away from the crowds?
Tuscany away from the crowds is located in Italy.
