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Food designations

10 olive oil towns within two hours of Florence

Città dell'Olio comuni within two hours of the Florence and Pisa hub. 10 towns shown, nearest first.

Tuscan oil has a capital region and it is not the supermarket shelf. The Città dell'Olio towns within two hours of Florence sit among the groves that press some of Italy's most protected extra virgin.

Nearest first. November is the frantoio season, when the new oil comes green and peppery and the mills accept visitors who ask politely.

  1. 1.Vicopisano41 minPisa · TuscanyA medieval river port on the southern slope of Monte Pisano, rebuilt by Brunelleschi in 1434 after Florence took the town from Pisa.
  2. 2.Montescudaio57 minPisa · TuscanyA fortified hill borgo at 242 meters above the Val di Cecina, named for a mountain of shields, with DOC wine since 1977 and bread, oil and grape all stamped in its identity.
  3. 3.Castagneto CarducciCastagneto Carducci68 minLivorno · TuscanyA hilltop borgo at 194 meters above the Costa degli Etruschi, renamed for the poet Carducci in 1907 and the home of Bolgheri and Sassicaia.
  4. 4.Vinci69 minFirenze · TuscanyThe hill town on Montalbano where Leonardo was born in 1452, with a ship-shaped castle that now holds his machines.
  5. 5.Montaione75 minFirenze · TuscanyA medieval glassmaking and truffle borgo at 341 meters above the Valdelsa, with a Franciscan replica of Jerusalem in the woods at San Vivaldo.

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  1. 6.San GimignanoSan Gimignano87 minSiena · TuscanyA walled hill town at 334 meters with 14 surviving medieval towers, UNESCO listed since 1990 and the home of Vernaccia.
  2. 7.Levanto95 minLa Spezia · LiguriaThe sixth Cinque Terre, a beach town and Cittaslow at the gateway of the national park, with a surf break and a striped Gothic church.
  3. 8.Sestri LevanteSestri Levante96 minGenova · LiguriaThe Tigullio town of two bays, where Hans Christian Andersen stayed in 1833 and Guglielmo Marconi ran his shortwave radio experiments.
  4. 9.SuveretoSuvereto97 minLivorno · TuscanyA stone borgo at 127 meters above the Val di Cornia, named for the cork oaks of its forests and ruled from the Rocca Aldobrandesca since 973.
  5. 10.ChiavariChiavari103 minGenova · LiguriaThe Tigullio capital between Portofino and the Cinque Terre, a 27,000-person Genoese trading town built around a thirteenth-century grid of porticoed streets.

We write about towns like these every Sunday, one town a week, with the photo, the food, the festa. Free, from Pietrasanta.

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