Anywhere Italy

Drive time

10 towns within an hour of Florence, without the crowds of Florence

Comuni within a 60 minute drive of the Florence and Pisa hub. 10 towns shown, ranked by recognitions held, then by smallest population. None of them queue.

Florence receives more visitors in a summer week than most of these towns see in a decade. Yet the same hour that queues for the Uffizi could put you in a comune where parking is free, lunch is booked by first name, and the Renaissance happened too, just with fewer postcards.

Every town here is within sixty minutes of the Florence and Pisa hub by road. We ranked them by the recognitions they hold, then by smallness, because in this catalogue small is a feature.

  1. 1.Livorno38 minLivorno · TuscanyTuscany's working port and Medici-planned 'New City' — a 16th-century planned town built on reclaimed coast, with a Venice-like canal quarter, the Quattro Mori monument, and a 1.5-km seafront promenade that locals call the world's most beautiful balcony.
  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.Peccioli58 minPisa · TuscanyBorgo dei Borghi 2024 in the Valdera hills, a medieval village that funded a public contemporary-art program with revenue from its landfill plant.
  4. 4.PisaPisa25 minPisa · TuscanyMaritime republic on the Arno, twelve kilometers from the Ligurian Sea, with the leaning bell tower at the center of a single UNESCO-listed walled compound.
  5. 5.San MiniatoSan Miniato56 minPisa · TuscanyThe hilltop town between Pisa and Florence that produces a quarter of Tuscany's white truffles and once held the imperial seat of Otto I.

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  1. 6.San Giuliano TermeSan Giuliano Terme26 minPisa · TuscanyA thermal spa at the foot of Monte Pisano, ten kilometers from Pisa, where the springs were bathed since the Romans called them Aquae Pisanae.
  2. 7.ViareggioViareggio44 minLucca · TuscanyThe Versilia capital, a Liberty-architecture seafront built around the 1873 Carnival and the 254-kilogram papier-mâché floats that still parade every February.
  3. 8.Montecarlo57 minLucca · TuscanyA walled hill village at 163 meters above the Lucca plain, founded by Emperor Charles IV in 1333 and named for him, surrounded by twenty wineries.
  4. 9.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.
  5. 10.PietrasantaPietrasanta50 minLucca · TuscanyThe marble-processing town under the Apuan Alps, founded in 1255 and worked since by Michelangelo, Henry Moore, Joan Miró and Fernando Botero.

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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One letter on Sundays. The week’s town, with the photo, the food, the festa. Free, by Peter & Sophia from Pietrasanta.

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