Tuscany: Places to Explore

Southern Tuscany

As diverse as Italy itself, southern Tuscany ranges from the green knolls of the Val d'Orcia to the sandy beaches at Punta Ala. It contains the wildest parts of Tuscany—the Maremma, once a malaria-ridden swampland where the butteri, Italy's cowboys, rounded up their cattle, now a peaceful woodland fringed with beaches; Monte Amiata, a scruffy mountain landscape where goats gnaw at clumps of brown grass among scattered rocks; and the still-wild islands of the Tuscan archipelago. Some of Tuscany's best-kept secrets lie here in the south, among them the Abbazia di San Galgano, which is open to the sky, and the cool mountain enclaves of Monte Amiata. This is Etruscan country, where the necropolis near Sovana hints at a rich and somewhat mysterious pre-Roman civilization.

You can visit the whole region in about five days. Keep in mind that southern Tuscany isn't well served by trains, so if you aren't renting a car you have to plan around sometimes difficult bus schedules, and the going will be slow. The A1 (Autostrada del Sole), which runs from Florence to Rome, passes near the Val d'Orcia. SS1 (the Via Aurelia) follows the western coastline for much of the way, before jutting inland at Grosseto.