The best small towns with a food festival in Toscana
A Tuscan food festival is not a fair with a stage. It is a trestle table in a piazza of travertine or dark volcanic stone, a paper menu with a single ingredient running through every course, and a queue of local families paying at a hut before they sit down. The calendar follows the harvest, so chestnut flour and new olive oil bring people out in late autumn, pecorino and wild herbs in spring, and wild boar whenever the hunt allows it. Sheep's cheese from the Val d'Orcia, pici rolled by hand, chestnut necci cooked between iron plates, sheep's-milk ricotta eaten warm: the menus are narrow on purpose. Wine comes in plastic cups from producers whose vineyards are visible from the table.
Most people eat their way through Tuscany in Florence, where the queue outside the Mercato Centrale and the trattorie around Santa Croce runs steadily from spring to the end of October, and the region's food reputation is bound tightly to Chianti and to Siena in Palio season. The city earns its crowds, and the bistecca alla fiorentina is worth ordering. But a busy urban market is a shop, not a village supper, and a restaurant table in high season rarely tells you what a particular hillside actually grows.
The same hills carry on south and east, into the Val d'Orcia, the Val di Chiana, the flank of Monte Amiata and the coastal ridges above the Cecina valley, and the sagre are what those hills do with their own produce. Fewer people go, partly because the dates are posted on a parish noticeboard rather than sold as a ticket. The towns here are small, walkable in an hour, and most of them build one weekend a year around a single thing they grow or raise. This list gathers those towns, with what they cook and roughly when they cook it.
Of the 84 communes we have mapped in Toscana, 20 qualify as towns with a food festival: each holds a recurring food festival built around one local ingredient. This list is the small ones, 7 in all, ordered smallest first. The smallest, Casale Marittimo, has 1,051 residents.
Two more lists worth reading alongside this one: The best towns with a food festival in the province of Siena and The 7 prettiest villages with a food festival in Toscana.
Casale Marittimo
Why visit Casale Marittimo
Casale Marittimo rises on a hill at 214 meters above the Val di Cecina, fifty kilometers southeast of Pisa, the Tyrrhenian coast visible from the upper streets. The settlement here was an outpost of Etruscan Volterra in the seventh century BC; the necropolis of Casa Nocera turned up two stone statues of warrior princes, now in the Archaeological Museum of Florence, among the oldest figurative sculptures in European art.
The medieval centro is recorded as a castle of the Counts of Gherardesca by 1004, the streets arranged in concentric rings inside the old walls, stone houses pressed against the slope. Casale Marittimo carries both the Borghi più belli d'Italia and Bandiera Arancione marks, unusual for a commune of just over a thousand inhabitants.
The Chiesa di Sant'Andrea sits on the foundations of an older parish church; Palazzo Rocca and the eighteenth-century Santa Maria delle Grazie close the small loop of the centro storico.
What to see in Casale Marittimo
- Centro storico. Concentric ring of stone streets inside the medieval walls, with houses pressed against the slope and Palazzo Rocca at the top.
- Chiesa di Sant'Andrea. Parish church rebuilt on the ruins of an older pieve, the principal religious building of the borgo.
- Santa Maria delle Grazie. Eighteenth-century church on the lower edge of the centro storico, simple Tuscan late-Baroque façade.
How to get to Casale Marittimo
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Livorno is roughly 50 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June brings the warm coastal hills into their best season, evenings still cool on the ridge. September and October are dry and clear, the harvest in the surrounding vineyards followed by the olive pick. July and August are hot in the Val di Cecina, but the sea breeze reaches the upper streets and tempers the worst of it. Sagra della Tagliata Mare e Terra falls in July.
San Casciano dei Bagni
Why visit San Casciano dei Bagni
San Casciano dei Bagni sits at 582 meters at the southern edge of the province of Siena, above 42 hot springs that average 42 degrees Celsius. The baths were used continuously from Etruscan through Roman times and again from the Renaissance, when visitors came from across Europe.
In 2022, an excavation that began in 2019 at the ancient sanctuary turned up 24 bronze votive statues protected by mud, with around 6,000 coins in gold, silver and bronze. The find was the largest of its kind in fifty years; most surviving Etruscan votive material is terracotta.
The 1,500 residents live on a basalt outcrop above the Roman thermal complex, in a centro storico of stone houses and three small churches. The borgo joined the Borghi più belli network in 2014 and remains one of the smallest communes in Toscana to carry both that label and Bandiera Arancione.
The re-enactment here is Palio di San Cassiano di San Casciano dei Bagni, usually held in August.
What to see in San Casciano dei Bagni
- Santuario Ritrovato. Etruscan-Roman thermal sanctuary excavated since 2019, where 24 bronze votives and around 6,000 coins were recovered in 2022.
- Bagno Grande. The principal natural pool of the 42 hot springs, used from the second century BC through the Renaissance and reopened to the public.
- Collegiata di San Leonardo. Romanesque parish church in the centro storico, restored in the seventeenth century, with a baptismal font carved from local travertine.
How to get to San Casciano dei Bagni
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Perugia is roughly 68 minutes away by road.
Our tip
The thermal pools make the calendar different here. Winter is the season many visitors prefer, when the 42-degree water steams against cold air and snow occasionally dusts the basalt outcrop. April through June and September into October are the most balanced months: warm hill light, the dry-stone walls of the borgo at their best, the sanctuary excavations open to guided tours. Sagra del Ciaffagnone di San Casciano dei Bagni falls in June.
Cetona
Why visit Cetona
The town sits on the western flank of a ridge at the meeting point of Toscana, Umbria and Lazio, where the mountain divides the Val d'Orcia from the Val di Chiana. The medieval comune passed between Siena, Orvieto and Perugia before falling to Siena in the late fourteenth century, and it was Cosimo I who later sold it whole to a marchese.
The fortress at the top of the grid and the square laid out below it are two halves of the same Renaissance move: a private residence replacing a garrison at the summit, a flat civic stage opened up at the base. Above the town, in the woods, the hermitage and the caves belong to a much older layer, human use of the mountain reaching back to the Mesolithic, long before any comune or marchese laid claim to it.
What the town adds up to is a settlement built in tiers: a prehistoric mountain, a contested medieval center, and a Renaissance overlay that reorganized the base of the hill without touching what stood above it.
The re-enactment here is Corsa delle brocche a Cetona, usually held in July.
What to see in Cetona
- Piazza Garibaldi. Elliptical square at the foot of the medieval grid, flat and open where the streets above it climb steeply. The civic stage of the borgo, still the first thing that orients a visitor.
- Rocca di Cetona. Fortress at the top of the centro storico, its walls and keep still standing though the interior became a private residence rather than a garrison.
- Convento di San Francesco. Franciscan convent below the borgo, founded in 1212, with a single-nave church and a small cloister still in religious use.
How to get to Cetona
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Perugia is roughly 78 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the months Cetona keeps its calmest pace, the wooded slopes of Monte Cetona green or rust depending on the half. July and August are hot in the centro storico but the mountain trails above 800 meters stay cool. The Mostra del Tartufo, dedicated to the local white truffles, runs the second weekend of November in Piazza Garibaldi. Sagra del Bico di Cetona falls in June.
Pienza
Why visit Pienza
Pienza sits at 491 meters on a long ridge in the Val d'Orcia, an hour and a half south of Siena. The village was called Corsignano until 1462.
Enea Silvio Piccolomini was born here in 1405 and became Pope Pius II in 1458; the following year he ordered the Florentine architect Bernardo Rossellino to rebuild his birthplace as a Renaissance ideal city. The work took three years.
The square at the center, the cathedral on the cliff side, the palace built for the pope's family, the cardinal's palace facing it, and the town hall opposite the cathedral were all designed and built as a single composition rather than assembled piece by piece over time. Pius consecrated the cathedral on 29 August 1462, two years before his death, and the whole arrangement has survived almost unchanged since.
What stands in Pienza today is less a collection of monuments than the physical record of one commission carried out in one stretch of years.
What to see in Pienza
- Piazza Pio II. Trapezoidal Renaissance square laid out by Bernardo Rossellino, with the Duomo, Palazzo Piccolomini, Palazzo Borgia and Palazzo Comunale facing each other.
- Duomo di Pienza. Latin-cross cathedral with three apsidal chapels, built on the cliff edge, its Renaissance façade also by Rossellino.
- Palazzo Piccolomini. Renaissance palace for the pope's family, begun 1459, with an internal courtyard and a hanging garden overlooking the Val d'Orcia.
How to get to Pienza
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Perugia is roughly 98 minutes away by road.
✷ We have written about Pienza
“When the film industry needed a picture of heaven, of the fields a dead hero walks home to, they came and shot it here, and that is the truest thing anyone has ever said about the Val d'Orcia. It is not a place. It is the afterlife as imagined by people who lived in cities. It is how the country looks to men who never spent an hour in it, dreamed up by Florentine bankers five hundred years ago and maintained, beautifully, ever since.”
Read our piece on Pienza →Val d'Orcia | The Postcard Is Constructed
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the months when the Val d'Orcia sits at its best, green or gold depending on the wheat cycle, and the Piazza Pio II is open for photographs without the day-tripper buses. July and August push past thirty-three degrees and the Corso Rossellino fills with tour groups between ten and four. The Fiera del Cacio, the cheese festival, takes the first Sunday in September, when the streets fill with stalls of pecorino producers from the Pienza ridge. Festa del Cacio di Pienza falls in September.
San Quirico d'Orcia
Why visit San Quirico d'Orcia
San Quirico d'Orcia sits at 409 meters on a low rise in the Val d'Orcia, the rolling clay-and-tufa landscape inscribed by UNESCO in 2004 as a cultural landscape shaped by fourteenth and fifteenth-century Sienese governance. The town was a stage on Sigeric the Serious's tenth-century Via Francigena from Canterbury to Rome and has remained a working stop on the route ever since.
The Collegiata dei Santi Quirico e Giulitta was built at the end of the twelfth century over an eighth-century baptistery; the lateral portal added in 1288 is attributed to Giovanni Pisano, then working on the Siena cathedral. The Horti Leonini, the geometric boxwood garden laid out by Diomede Leoni around 1580 inside the town walls, hosts the Forme nel Verde sculpture exhibition every summer since 1971.
Bagno Vignoni, the frazione five kilometers down the road, has a thermal pool at the center of its piazza, used since Etruscan times. Few comuni this small carry UNESCO, thermal and Francigena signals at once.
The re-enactment here is Festa del Barbarossa a San Quirico d'Orcia, usually held in June.
What to see in San Quirico d'Orcia
- Collegiata dei Santi Quirico e Giulitta. Romanesque parish church built late twelfth century over an eighth-century baptistery, with the 1288 lateral portal attributed to Giovanni Pisano.
- Horti Leonini. Italianate boxwood garden laid out by Diomede Leoni around 1580 inside the town walls, hosting the Forme nel Verde sculpture exhibition since 1971.
- Bagno Vignoni. Frazione five kilometers south, with a sixteenth-century thermal pool at the center of its piazza, fed by springs used since Etruscan times.
How to get to San Quirico d'Orcia
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Perugia is roughly 96 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the gold months in the Val d'Orcia: green wheat in spring, ochre stubble by autumn, low light that defines the cypress ridges. The Festa del Barbarossa runs the third Sunday of June with archery, jousts and crossbow contests between the town quarters. July and August are hot and busy; the centro storico fills with day-trippers from Pienza and Montalcino. Festa del Barbarossa a San Quirico d'Orcia falls in June.
Lucignano
Why visit Lucignano
Lucignano sits at 400 meters on a hill in the Valdichiana, halfway between Siena and Arezzo, built on a tight elliptical plan of four concentric rings of streets. Its position made it one of the most contested settlements of medieval Toscana: Siena, Arezzo, Florence and Perugia all fought over it between 1200 and 1500.
The current walls and three gates date to a Sienese reconstruction of 1371. In the Museo Civico inside the Palazzo Comunale stands the Albero d'Oro, a 260-centimeter Gothic gold-and-coral reliquary in the shape of a tree, begun by Ugolino di Vieri in 1350 and finished by Gabriello d'Antonio in 1471.
Local tradition turned it into the Albero dell'Amore, a marriage charm. The Collegiata di San Michele Arcangelo dominates the highest ring of the borgo, and the elliptical plan is best read from the air, which is why drone footage of Lucignano keeps appearing in articles about medieval Tuscan urbanism.
What to see in Lucignano
- Albero d'Oro. 260-cm Gothic reliquary in the shape of a tree, gold, coral and enamel, begun by Ugolino di Vieri in 1350 and completed by Gabriello d'Antonio in 1471.
- Centro storico ellittico. Four concentric rings of streets inside elliptical walls, the most complete example of medieval Tuscan elliptical town planning.
- Collegiata di San Michele Arcangelo. Eighteenth-century church on the highest ring of the borgo, with a Vasari façade adjustment and a baroque organ inside the medieval shell.
How to get to Lucignano
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Perugia is roughly 65 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the months Lucignano keeps its balance, the Valdichiana green or gold depending on the half and the centro storico cool inside its elliptical walls. The Maggiolata, a flower festival between the four quarters of the borgo, runs across the last two Sundays of May. July and August push the valley past thirty and the centro storico thins after lunch. Sagra della Filiera del Tartufo Marzuolo falls in March.
Piancastagnaio
Why visit Piancastagnaio
The name means plain of the chestnut, and the forest that still climbs the slope above the town is what fed it for most of its history: sweet chestnut, sessile oak, beech. The town itself sits at 772 meters, built around a twelfth-century keep that passed to Siena in 1418 and to the Medici in 1559, and the palazzo built into its old defenses in the sixteenth century reads as the Medici layer set directly against the Aldobrandeschi one.
Contrade named Borgo, Castello, Coro and Voltaia divide the centro storico for the August race, while the mining museum keeps the record of an industry, cinnabar and mercury, that ran on the mountain from Etruscan times until it closed in 1982 and that has otherwise left the town to the chestnut trade. What Piancastagnaio adds up to is a place where a volcano's slope has supplied, in turn, timber and food, ore, and a festival calendar, and where the built town still carries each of those histories as a separate, legible layer rather than a single blended one.
The re-enactment here is Palio delle Contrade di Piancastagnaio, usually held in August.
What to see in Piancastagnaio
- Rocca Aldobrandesca. Twelfth-century Aldobrandeschi keep at the heart of the centro storico, with a square tower and surviving curtain wall.
- Palazzo Bourbon del Monte. Sixteenth-century Medici-era palazzo built into the medieval defenses, with a courtyard loggia and ceremonial hall.
- Museo Minerario di Sant'Anna. Mining museum on the cinnabar and mercury extraction of Monte Amiata, active from the Etruscans until the mine closed in 1982.
How to get to Piancastagnaio
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Perugia is roughly 135 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May through September is the season on the southern Amiata slope. The chestnut woods are open, the air at 772 meters stays cool against the Maremma heat below, and the trails to the volcano summit run from town. The Palio delle Contrade is the second weekend in August, the only date most outsiders know. Crastatone di Piancastagnaio falls in the season.
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