Mountain towns
Mountain towns in Tuscany
7 towns
Towns inside a named range: the Alps, the Dolomites, the Apennines, the Pollino, the Aspromonte. Around 800 metres and up, where the season decides the trip.
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Abetone Cutigliano
Province: Pistoia · 1,388 m
The Apennine ski pass at 1,388 meters where the Granduca's two stone pyramids of 1778 mark the old Tuscan-Modenese border.
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Radicofani
Province: Siena · 814 m
The Val d'Orcia's basalt watchtower: a 1,060-resident UNESCO-inscribed borgo at 814m on a volcanic outcrop visible across half of southern Tuscany, crowned by an outlaw's fortress that Dante and Boccaccio both wrote into their pages.
Piancastagnaio
Province: Siena · 772 m
A chestnut-belt borgo at 772 meters on the southern slope, where four contrade still race for the Palio delle Contrade each August.
Santa Fiora
Province: Grosseto · 687 m
An Aldobrandeschi and Sforza mountain borgo on Monte Amiata at 687 meters, holding one of the world's largest collections of Della Robbia terracotta.
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Castiglione di Garfagnana
Province: Lucca · 540 m
A walled medieval town at 540 meters in the Garfagnana, the Lucca outpost that refused to submit to the Este and held the pass to San Pellegrino.
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Fivizzano
Province: Massa-Carrara · 373 m
The draw here is not the capoluogo but its 92 mountain frazioni, scattered across a Lunigiana commune where a thermal gorge, an intact fortress and a ridge-top hamlet each stand as their own destination.
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Castelnuovo di Garfagnana
Province: Lucca · 277 m
The Garfagnana capital where the fortified medieval borgo sits at the confluence of the Serchio and the Turrite, where the Tuscan Apennines meet the Alpi Apuane.
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From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Biccari
Province: Foggia
A Subappennino Dauno borgo at 450 meters under Monte Cornacchia, the highest peak in Puglia at 1,151 meters, with a Byzantine tower at its core.
Sirolo
Province: Ancona
A clifftop borgo at 125 meters, above the Due Sorelle sea stacks of the Adriatic.
Penne
Province: Pescara
The brick city at 438 meters between the Tavo and Fino, ancient capital of the Vestini, rebuilt after Allied bombing and awarded the Silver Medal of Civic Merit.
Palazzolo Acreide
Province: Siracusa
An 8,000-resident hilltop town on the Iblei plateau at 670m, rebuilt entirely in late Baroque after the 1693 earthquake and founded over the Greek Akrai colony in 664 BC, with a Greek theatre and a cluster of rock carvings unlike anything else nearby.
Verucchio
Province: Rimini
A spur over the lower Marecchia valley, cradle of the Villanovan civilization and birthplace of the Malatesta lordship of Romagna.