Instead of Cortona
Instead of Cortona: hill towns within 90 minutes
Cortona has had a book and a film written about it and has been busy ever since. The view over the Val di Chiana is still the best in eastern Tuscany.
The same ridge runs north and south, into the Casentino and down toward Trasimeno, with towns nobody has optioned.
Hill towns in our catalogue within 90 minutes of Cortona by road, ranked by outside recognition. Cortona itself and the other famous places are left out. 38 towns match; the 12 best-recognised are below.
Instead of Cortona
Cortona · 21,133 residents · Toscana
- LucignanoArezzo
Hill town · Borgo dei Borghi
- From Cortona
- 40m by car
- By train
- Reachable
- Residents
- 3,383
- When to go
- Apr–Oct
Hill town · Borghi più belli d'Italia
- From Cortona
- 1h 8m by car
- Residents
- 1,500
- When to go
- All year
- TreviPerugia
Hill town · Borghi più belli d'Italia
- From Cortona
- 1h 24m by car
- By train
- Reachable
- Residents
- 8,063
- When to go
- Apr–Oct
- MontefalcoPerugia
Hill town · Borghi più belli d'Italia
- From Cortona
- 1h 30m by car
- Residents
- 5,357
- When to go
- Apr–Oct
- MontalcinoSiena
Hill town · UNESCO
- From Cortona
- 1h 20m by car
- By train
- Reachable
- Residents
- 5,611
- When to go
- Apr–Oct
The 5 best-recognised of the 38 towns that match. Drive times measured by road from Cortona. More of them follow below.
Lucignano
Province: Arezzo · 400 m
A walled elliptical hill town at 400 meters between Siena and Arezzo, planned in medieval concentric rings around the goldsmith's reliquary called the Tree of Life.
San Casciano dei Bagni
Province: Siena · 582 m
A hilltop borgo at 582 meters above 42 hot springs that produced the largest Etruscan bronze hoard of the last fifty years.
Trevi
Province: Perugia · 412 m
A walled town at 412 meters above the Spoleto valley, ringed by 200,000 olive trees that make it the Umbrian capital of olive oil.
Montefalco
Province: Perugia · 472 m
The hilltop wine capital of Umbria at 472 meters, where Sagrantino is grown almost nowhere else.
- ✷ We've been
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.
Anghiari
Province: Arezzo · 430 m
A walled medieval town at 430 meters over the upper Tiber valley, where Florence beat Milan in 1440 and Leonardo started the fresco he never finished.
Spello
Province: Perugia · 280 m
Augustan Hispellum sits at 280 meters on Monte Subasio, its Roman gates still standing over streets that Pinturicchio once painted a chapel for.
Panicale
Province: Perugia · 431 m
A walled hill town at 431 meters on Monte Petrarvella, where a 1505 Perugino fresco covers the back wall of San Sebastiano.
Montone
Province: Perugia · 482 m
A walled medieval hill town at 482 meters above the upper Tiber, birthplace of the condottiero Braccio Fortebracci.
Cetona
Province: Siena · 384 m
A medieval borgo at 384 meters, sold by Cosimo I to the Vitelli in 1556 and the centro storico still shaped by their fortress reconstruction.
Bevagna
Province: Perugia · 225 m
Roman Mevania on the Umbrian plain at 225 meters, four medieval quarters that compete every June in a reconstructed market of the 13th century.
- ✷ We've been
Castelnuovo Berardenga
Province: Siena · 351 m
A commune of 351 meters, the last castle Siena built against Florence, in 1366.
Drive times measured by road from Cortona. A town with no time shown is one the router could not reach, usually because it is served by ferry. How this data is built.