Tuscan Hill Towns for Renaissance Experience
When I think of Tuscan hill towns and the countryside surrounding them, an ideal stretch of roadway comes to mind. Off to the left is row after row of gnarled olive trees, limbs spread in arthritic helter-skelter, to the right, vineyards neat and laden with grapes. Dirt roads, white as chalk, run cursively through dry grasses and fields of grain. In the middle distance, upon one of those soft rolling hills that are verdant in the spring and sere by August, there is a straight line of dark cypresses marking the path up to an old stone homestead that has reflected the afternoon light, just so, for centuries.
And there is more. A 15th-century Renaissance village sits high on a hill to the east, the spire of its campanile like an inverted pen dipping into the deep blue ink of the Tuscan sky at dusk. The sun drops behind an endless succession of hills and hill towns in a landscape that could easily be the background in a painting by Ambrogio Lorenzetti or Simone Martini. A sturdy Tuscan farmer, shirt buttoned at the top, tieless, head topped by the ever-present cap, will be walking, but never hurrying, down the road toward home, badgered by an occasional black and white jay. And this magical spot on Strada Statale (State Road) 146 in the Val d’Orcia, is but 15 minutes away by car from one of the best restaurants in Italy.
Tuscany abounds with such fetching panoramas, and it is a singular pleasure to flee the big cities, follow whim and intuition on the highway and explore the lordly villages that once reigned as small but enlightened city-states. Like jewels set in a bumpy crown, Tuscany’s hill towns catch the light in a different way. Each has its own history, its own personality, its own beauties and quirks.
The following itineraries day trips if you move quickly, overnights if you don’t have been designed with Siena as home base, though Florence is convenient, too. They’re by no means comprehensive. By the time you’ve staggered up your last hill, however, you will probably be sagacious on the subtleties of Sienese art, know the splendor of Chianti rolling over your tongue, have tales to tell about wild boar and other Tuscan specialties, and discern the chill of Guelf and Ghibelline animosities in modern conversations, if you’re not just babbling rapturous about the sheer beauty of it all. You will be enriched, in short, by what continues to be, here at the low end of the 20th century, a Renaissance experience.
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