UNESCO
UNESCO in Tuscany
12 towns
Tuscany carries 12 of the UNESCO towns we cover. They cluster in the Siena, Firenze, and Lucca provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Montalcino, San Gimignano, and Castiglione d'Orcia. 9 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
Montalcino
Province: Siena · 564 m
A walled hill town at 564 meters above the Val d'Orcia, the last fortress to hold out for the Sienese Republic and the birthplace of Brunello.
San Gimignano
Province: Siena · 334 m
A walled hill town at 334 meters with 14 surviving medieval towers, UNESCO listed since 1990 and the home of Vernaccia.
Castiglione d'Orcia
Province: Siena · 540 m
A stone borgo at 540 meters in the UNESCO Val d'Orcia, first recorded in 714, with two fortresses guarding the road from Amiata to the Via Francigena.
San Quirico d'Orcia
Province: Siena · 409 m
A walled stop on the Via Francigena at 409 meters in the UNESCO Val d'Orcia, where a twelfth-century Collegiata, a Renaissance garden and the Bagno Vignoni thermal pool sit within fifteen kilometers of each other.
Carmignano
Province: Prato · 189 m
A Medici village at 189 meters on the Montalbano slopes, where Pontormo's Visitation hangs in the parish church and Etruscan tumuli sit below the Renaissance villas.
Pienza
Province: Siena · 491 m
The first Renaissance ideal city, built from 1459 by Bernardo Rossellino for Pope Pius II on the Val d'Orcia ridge.
- ✷ We've been
Pisa
Province: Pisa · 4 m
Maritime 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.
Radicofani
Province: Siena · 814 m
The Val d'Orcia's basalt watchtower — a 1,060-resident UNESCO-inscribed borgo at 814m on a volcanic basalt outcrop visible across half of southern Tuscany, with the spectacular Rocca di Radicofani (Ghino di Tacco's outlaw fortress, mentioned by Dante in Purgatorio + Boccaccio in the Decameron), the 16th-c Posta Medicea on the Via Francigena, and Bandiera Arancione + UNESCO + Via Francigena triple signal.
Cerreto Guidi
Province: Firenze · 123 m
The Medici hunting villa above the Padule di Fucecchio, where Cosimo I sent his court for the marshland game and Buontalenti built four ramps of stairs.
- ✷ We've been
Montecatini-Terme
Province: Pistoia · 27 m
Eleven thermal springs in a Liberty-style park at the foot of the Apennines, one of the Great Spa Towns of Europe inscribed by UNESCO in 2021.
Seravezza
Province: Lucca · 100 m
The Versilia town at the foot of Monte Altissimo where Michelangelo opened the Pope's marble quarries and Cosimo I built his summer palace.
Barberino di Mugello
Province: Firenze · 272 m
The Mugello gateway at 272 meters where the Medici family kept its first country villas, with Michelozzo's Cafaggiolo and the artificial Lago di Bilancino below.
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From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Pieve di Soligo
Province: Treviso
The market town between the Soligo and Lierza rivers in the Prosecco UNESCO zone, birthplace of the twentieth-century poet Andrea Zanzotto.
Vallefoglia
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
A 2014 merger commune at 295 meters in the Foglia valley, born from Colbordolo, birthplace of Raffaello's father, and Sant'Angelo in Lizzola.
Abano Terme
Province: Padova
Europe's oldest thermal town on the Euganean Hills' eastern slope, where 80°C bromo-iodine springs have been drawing bathers since the eighth century BC.
Bosa
Province: Oristano
A colour-washed riverside town on Sardinia's only navigable river, with a Malaspina castle on the hill and the tanneries of Sas Conzas along the Temo.
Castagnole delle Lanze
Province: Asti
An Asti hill town at 298 meters between Langhe and Monferrato, with two Baroque churches and a nineteenth-century astronomical tower.