Instead of Orvieto
Instead of Orvieto: hill towns within 90 minutes
Orvieto sits on a tufa plug with a cathedral facade worth the train fare, and it is the standard stop between Rome and Florence for exactly that reason.
The tufa country around it, into Lazio and up the Tiber, is full of towns on the same rock with the same caves under them.
Hill towns in our catalogue within 90 minutes of Orvieto by road, ranked by outside recognition. Orvieto itself and the other famous places are left out. 51 towns match; the 12 best-recognised are below.
Instead of Orvieto
Orvieto · 19,461 residents · Umbria
- LucignanoArezzo
Hill town · Borgo dei Borghi
- From Orvieto
- 1h 6m by car
- By train
- Reachable
- Residents
- 3,383
- When to go
- Apr–Oct
Hill town · Borghi più belli d'Italia
- From Orvieto
- 48m by car
- Residents
- 1,500
- When to go
- All year
- RonciglioneViterbo
Hill town · Borgo dei Borghi
- From Orvieto
- 1h 17m by car
- By train
- Reachable
- Residents
- 8,447
- When to go
- Apr–Oct
- MontefalcoPerugia
Hill town · Borghi più belli d'Italia
- From Orvieto
- 1h 19m by car
- Residents
- 5,357
- When to go
- Apr–Oct
- MancianoGrosseto
Hill town · Borghi più belli d'Italia
- From Orvieto
- 1h 21m by car
- Residents
- 7,052
- When to go
- Apr–Oct
The 5 best-recognised of the 51 towns that match. Drive times measured by road from Orvieto. 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.
- ✷ We've been
Ronciglione
Province: Viterbo · 441 m
A tufa-brick borgo above Lake Vico, fortified by the Prefects of Vico and crowned Borgo dei Borghi in 2023.
Montefalco
Province: Perugia · 472 m
The hilltop wine capital of Umbria at 472 meters, where Sagrantino is grown almost nowhere else.
- ✷ We've been
Manciano
Province: Grosseto · 444 m
A market town at 444 meters in the southern Maremma, with a Sienese fortress of 1424 and the thermal frazione of Saturnia in its territory.
Sutri
Province: Viterbo · 291 m
An Etruscan and Roman town on a tuff spur, with a rock-cut amphitheater carved straight from the volcanic stone of the Cimini.
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.
Pitigliano
Province: Grosseto · 313 m
The Little Jerusalem of southern Tuscany, carved into a tuff spur in the Maremma, where the houses, the synagogue and the streets are all cut from the same volcanic rock.
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
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.
- ✷ 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 Orvieto. 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.