tuscany
CENTRAL ITALY
Tuscany is blessed, even by Italy’s high stan-
dards. In Florence, it has Europe’s greatest
Renaissance city, and in Siena, its most
perfect medieval town. Hilltop villages look
much as they have for centuries, and the
timeless landscapes, worked over millennia,
are a tapestry of vineyards, age-old olive
groves, cypress-topped hills, rustic farm-
houses, and fields of wheat and summer
sunflowers. Visitors gorged on art and scen-
ery can feast on the region’s sublime food
or sample wine at a profusion of wineries.DON’T MISS
The Val d’Orcia (Orcia Valley), south of Siena, epito-
mizes all that is best in Tuscany, home to pastoral
landscapes and a lovely abbey—Sant’Antimo—as well
as a trio of its most captivating small towns: Pienza,
Montalcino, and Montepulciano.Olives, cypresses, vineyards, and rolling hills—a classic
Tuscan landscape in the Orcia Valley near Pienza19 PEAKS & VALLEYS