Florence oozes culture but there are also quiet towns with fine restaurants, stunning mountain regions and monasteries to nourish body and soul – all within a few hours of the city
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Winning tip:Barga
If tired of museums and crowds, 24 hours in Barga, with its twisting lanes, artistic residents and incredible views, will refresh your soul. Flower-filled stairways lead up to the cathedral, and a vista over the tiles and verdant valley towards the Apuan Alps. There are plenty of trattorie to sample delicious regional fare. Barga can be reached from Florence by train but it is simpler and quicker to drive, around two hours. Stay in the serene Villa Moorings or one of the many agriturismi.
+39 0583 711538, villamoorings.it
marthah
Certaldo Alta
Certaldo Alta is a short train ride from Florence. Head for the old part, either on foot or using the cable car from the square. It's a Tuscan hill town with few tourists, interesting history and quiet bars and restaurants. In the summer there is a music and arts festival so you can listen to jazz in part of an old church surrounded by ancient frescoes. Stay for the night in nearby Fattoria Bassetto, a former Benedictine convent, which is now a budget hotel and hostel. In one room there is a black-and-white photograph of the family who still own it, taken in the 1950's by Cecil Beaton. The owners are lovely. Arrange a cooking class at a nearby farm, and don't return to Florence!
+39 348 4370285, fattoriabassetto.com
jennyred
Cortona
Take the train an hour and 20 minutes south to Camucia and then a bus or taxi up to the ancient Etruscan walled-town of Cortona. From Piazza Garibaldi, the main street has many bars where you can take a light lunch enjoying the casual atmosphere, before walking out of town back past Piazza Garibaldi to the tree-lined avenue of the park, Giardini Parterre, with magnificent views across the Valdichiana. At the end of the park turn left up the cypress-lined road with wonderful views over the hills and you will come to Bramasole, the big peach-coloured house where Frances Mayes wrote Under the Tuscan Sun. Carry on to the village of Torreone and turn left to follow the old roman road through the Porta Montanina back into Cortona. Stroll down through the steep narrow streets to Piazza della Republica just after siesta as the town comes to life and enjoy a possible free wine tasting at Enoteca Molesini. The piazza buzzes with life in the early evening and you will find it hard to leave.
daviesron
San Gimignano
An hour by road from Florence, lose yourself among rolling olive groves and vineyards and hills dotted with fabulous, tranquil, rustic places to stay; clusters of ancient farm buildings, seemingly assembled by the god of aesthetically pleasing structures-in-stone, like a medieval Manhattan. You will see this town's best angle from your poolside veranda with a glass of vernaccia in hand.
sangimignano.com/en
marthah
Lucca
About 90 minutes away by train, Lucca is much smaller and less touristy than Florence. See Piazza dell'Anfiteatro, oval in shape because the houses are built into the walls of the Roman amphitheatre. Here, in 56BC, Julius Caesar, Pompey and Crassus formed the First Triumvirate (coalition government) to rule Rome. Look out of the train at the stop before, Montecatini Terme, to see the modernist Mussolini-era station.
turismo.provincia.lucca.it
aptayler
Lucca
Lucca, birthplace of Puccini, is a gem. Stroll tree-lined city walls as wide as a motorway; for fantastic views climb the bricked Guinigi tower which has a tree growing on the top. For mouth-watering Tuscan food head to the family-run Trattoria Buralli on Piazza Sant'Agostino.
+39 0583 950611, vecciatrattoriaburalli.it
bettinayork
Pisa
Catch the express train to Pisa airport and get off at Pisa Central. Walk to the river Arno and cross by Ponte di Mezzo. Explore the narrow streets and squares, and eventually you will arrive at the leaning tower. Make sure you walk back to the station exploring a different route – there's so much more to discover than the buildings close to the tower (which is all that you are likely to see if you book on an organised excursion).
gdeanouk
National parks
Flee the tourist hurly-burly and head for the hills. Not the well-known wine-rich Chianti region to the south, but the wilder rugged and forested Apennines to the east. Parco Nazionale delle Foreste Casentinesi, Monte Falterona e Campigna, straddling the Tuscan and Emilia-Romagna border, is 25 miles away, and easily reached by bus, although a car offers more flexibility. The majestic ancient forests offer beauty and meditative stillness. Chestnut woods on the lower slopes where old and dead trees have been kept seem magical and enchanted. Statuesque stands of dark fir are carefully managed, while the higher ground is clothed in cathedral-like beech, sometimes serried ranks leaning at improbable angles, pushed over by a winter avalanche sometime in their past. Timber from here was used in the construction of the dome of Florence's Duomo and was especially prized for shipbuilding.
The main ridge is traversed by the Grande Escursione Appenninica, a 230-mile hiking trail from the Umbria and Marche border, near Sansepolcro, to Montelungo in Liguria. Marked and unmarked paths are plentiful, though a good map is essential. Out of peak season and at weekends, the chances are you won't see another soul. Contemplation and reflection is sustained by an overnight stay at the Foresteria attached to the Monastero di Camaldoli. Delicious food, comfortable uncluttered rooms and an atmosphere of quiet dedication to work and prayer deep in the forest nourish body and spirit.
parks.it/cpf/foresteria.monastero.camaldoli/eindex.php
andrewcmcd