Lisa Gerard-Sharp - Insight Regional Guide: Tuscany

How To Use This E-Book

Getting around the e-book

This Insight Guide e-book is designed to give you inspiration for your visit to Tuscany, as well as comprehensive planning advice to make sure you have the best travel experience. The guide begins with our selection of Top Attractions, as well as our Editors Choice categories of activities and experiences. Detailed features on history, people and culture paint a vivid portrait of contemporary life in Tuscany. The extensive Places chapters give a complete guide to all the sights and areas worth visiting. The Travel Tips provide full information on getting around, hotels, activities from to culture to shopping to sport, plus a wealth of practical information to help you plan your trip.

In the Table of Contents and throughout this e-book you will see hyperlinked references. Just tap a hyperlink once to skip to the section you would like to read. Practical information and listings are also hyperlinked, so as long as you have an external connection to the internet, you can tap a link to go directly to the website for more information.

Maps

All key attractions and sights in Tuscany are numbered and cross-referenced to high-quality maps. Wherever you see the reference [map] just tap this to go straight to the related map. You can also double-tap any map for a zoom view.

Images

Youll find hundreds of beautiful high-resolution images that capture the essence of Tuscany. Simply double-tap on an image to see it full-screen.

About Insight Guides

Insight Guides have more than 40 years experience of publishing high-quality, visual travel guides. We produce 400 full-colour titles, in both print and digital form, covering more than 200 destinations across the globe, in a variety of formats to meet your different needs.

Insight Guides are written by local authors who use their on-the-ground experience to provide the very latest information; their local expertise is evident in the extensive historical and cultural background features. All the reviews in Insight Guides are independent; we strive to maintain an impartial view. Our reviews are carefully selected to guide to you the best places to stay and eat, so you can be confident that when we say a restaurant or hotel is special, we really mean it.

Like all Insight Guides , this e-book contains hundreds of beautiful photographs to inspire and inform your travel. We commission most of our own photography, and we strive to capture the essence of a destination using original images that you wont find anywhere else.

2012 Apa Publications (UK) Ltd

The Best of Tuscany: Top Attractions

The enigmatic Etruscans, the wine-loving Tuscans, Italys loveliest hill towns, the worlds finest museum of Renaissance art, the iconic Leaning Tower, countryside that inspired Leonardo da Vinci Tuscany has it all

Top Attraction 1

Val dOrcia landscape With its farmhouses, abbeys and conical hills, this pastoral landscape was redrawn in the 14th and 15th centuries to reflect good governance and create an aesthetically pleasing picture that has inspired many artists ().

Robert Harding Picture Library

Top Attraction 2

The Leaning Tower of Pisa Finally fully restored, this iconic symbol of Tuscan architectural genius stands alongside the gleaming Duomo and Baptistery on Pisas aptly named Campo dei Miracoli the Field of Miracles. ().

iStockphoto.com

Top Attraction 3

San Gimignano, a medieval Manhattan As Italys best-preserved medieval town, Tuscanys time capsule survives, with its bold towers signifying San Gimignanos prestige and prosperity. A beguiling spirit transcends the towns over-popularity. ().

Corbis

Top Attraction 4

Florentine churches From Brunelleschis dazzling Duomo to Romanesque San Miniato, Gothic Santa Croce and Michelangelos Medici tombs in San Lorenzo, Florentine churches are mesmerising repositories of art and history. ().

Britta Jaschinski/APA

Top Attraction 5

Wine-tasting in the Chianti Ignore the Chiantishire tag and visit a chequered landscape of vineyards, villages and fortified-wine estates that include the Castello di Brolio, birthplace of the modern Chianti industry. ().

Steve McDonald/APA

Top Attraction 6

Etruscan Tuscany Whether in Volterras intriguing Etruscan museum or Chiusis painted tombs, the colour and life of Etruscan art contrasts with the cold perfectionism of the Greeks and Romans. ().

Scala Archives

Top Attraction 7

The Uffizi Gallery in Florence The worlds greatest collection of Renaissance art includes masterpieces such as Botticellis Birth of Venus, and works by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian and other masters of the High Renaissance. ().

Scala Archives

Top Attraction 8

Hill towns of Montepulciano and Montalcino Montepulciano and Montalcino draw you in with their palaces, seductive lifestyle and cellars of famed wines. Sip Vino Nobile in Cantine Contucci or sample Brunello di Montalcino in the Fortezza. ().

Steve McDonald/APA

Top Attraction 9

Tuscan spas Despite dating back to Etruscan times, Tuscanys new breed of thermal spas combine sophisticated pampering with authentic water cures in incomparable natural settings as in Fonteverde Terme or Terme di Saturnia. ().

WestEnd61/Rex Features

Top Attraction 10