WHEN I SAY WE FLEW to Pisa and never saw the Leaning Tower that's not strictly true. We studied a huge, scale model of it, sculpted out of finest alabaster, at an exhibition 50km away, in the heart of the Tuscan countryside.
The hilltop town of V
olterra gets ignored by a lot of people in their rush to check out the glories of Pisa, Siena and Florence. But climb to the top of the tower of the 13th-century Palazzo dei Priori, the oldest civic hall in Italy, and you'll see why this jumble of streets was once the region's richest city. Ahead of you, down the steep hillside, beyond the medieval walls and third century BC Etruscan gateway, is the site of some of the oldest salt mines in the Mediterranean – and salt, in the days before refrigerators, was a commodity over which fortresses were besieged and hilltop towns brought down. The Medicis of Florence did that to Volterra in 1472.
Alabaster is basically rock salt. We learned this courtesy of our guide Vincenzo on a tour of the town's latest show (running at the Palazzo until 3 November) – a celebration of its alabaster sculptors and designers of the past 200 years. You'll find everything here, from translucent shepherdesses to marble-effect table tops, inlaid trinket boxes to Art Deco radio cases and the aforementioned Leaning Tower – still under construction. And there's one truly scary bust of a 1920s flapper, complete with feather boa, wild eyes and manic grin. To put the town's celebrated skills in context, the curators have also included a set of Etruscan funeral urns – on loan from the nearby Museo Etrusco Guarnacci – each depicting its occupant lying down as at a banquet, women alongside their men.
For more on what's known of this early civilisation, a visit to the Etruscan museum is a must. It'll help make sense of one of Volterra's more popular souvenirs – an elongated statuette (the original is bronze) called the Evening Shadow. As to more recent history – from the Romans to the Renaissance (not a lot has happened to the old town since) – take a stroll through the piazza in the direction of the civic museum and on to the Roman baths and amphitheatre. Call in at the marble-clad duomo to see the 15th-century fresco by Benozzo Gozzoli, and don't forget to look up at the Medici family crest on the roof. Then, if you can't leave town without taking something with you, head to Rossi Alabastri, a workshop in a backstreet not far from the baths, where you can watch sculptors work and pick up pieces of their art.
With its views out west towards the sea, and in all other directions over wooded hills and vine-clad valleys, Volterra would make a very pleasant place to stay (or at least stop for something to eat), but we were on a whistlestop tour of the Tuscan countryside. There are companies that specialise in tours of the local towns and villages, but ours was a DIY affair and we were due for a wine-tasting session and lunch at another hilltop town entirely – Tuscany's self-styled City of Flavours, San Miniato.
This is the place to go in autumn: truffle season. The largest white truffle ever was found in this district in 1954, weighing in at a whopping 2.5kg. The annual National White Truffle Market is held here in the last three weeks of November. The area is famous, too, for its artichokes, asparagus, olive oil, pork and vinsanto, a sweet raisin wine – and for an odd import from Kentucky: cigars are made here from locally grown tobacco, which in summer you can see drying out in the fields.
It was wildly over-optimistic of us to attempt both Volterra and San Miniato by lunchtime – the romance of driving about the Tuscan countryside is fine until you get lost. Already late, we took the wrong one of four almost parallel streets straddling San Miniato's three hills, passing right by the celebrated 13th-century church of San Domenico and the 12th-century Palazzo dei Vicari, and its distinctive crenelated tower, with scarcely a glance. If you are exploring Tuscany's many glorious medieval hilltop towns, take a tip and do them separately, allowing time for a leisurely midday meal in each.
Because lunch is something the Italians do better than anyone. In the fabulous mirrored dining room of the villa at Cosimo Maria Masini, an estate just outside San Miniato, we finally sat down to a tastebud-flirting meal while being introduced to the estate's three main wines – all produced without chemicals and with the minimum of human intervention. Guided through our tasting by Lee, an enthusiastic proponent of the biodynamic method, we tucked into our antipasto of deep-fried local vegetables in the lightest of batters, proceeding via a wonderfully earthy asparagus and rabbit tagliatelli to a main course of pork and potatoes roasted in olive oil from the estate – and then on to a decadent tortino al cioccolato for dessert. Tempting as it was to linger at the table all afternoon, a tour of the vineyards and cellar is included with your butler-service lunch and tasting, and it seemed churlish to refuse in favour of seconds, however keenly proffered.
The hospitality at Cosimo Maria Masini was rivalled only by our base for the weekend, Il Palazzo, a luxurious 18th-century villa on the hillside estate of Borgo di Colleoli. Forty minutes from Pisa, about the same from Florence, and a 20-minute cab ride from the railway station at Pontedera, it's as peaceful a hideaway as the Pisa to Florence freeway is frenetic. You approach via a little road that winds its way up from the valley, turn down a tree-lined avenue and pull up in a sweep of gravel beside Il Palazzo's imposing front door. Once inside, you find a luxury hotel with the personality of a private house. Reception is a desk with a laptop and a phone in one corner of the Music Room – so called because of its high, painted ceiling, excellent acoustics and minstrel's gallery (and the fact that they hold concerts here).
With its two pools, wine bar and award-winning cellar restaurant – self-catering apartments are another recent addition – there's plenty to keep you on the estate, although there's no pretence at a buzzing nightlife. (For that, head to the bar in nearby Palaia, or down into the valley to the amusingly kitsch Fattoria Santa Lucia). The lavish suites have everything you'd ever want for a quiet night in, in fact, but the best things to me were the kettle and the tea bags – after a day of counting medieval clock towers on the skyline (San Gimignano's 13 remained sadly elusive), pigging out on tagliatelli and tortini, and getting lost, a good cup of tea, strangely, is the very thing you need.
Factfile: TUSCANY
How to get there • Jet2 (
Jet2.com) flies direct from Edinburgh to Pisa from £35.99 one way. Transfers by car from Pisa airport to Borgo di Colleoli cost ¤70 (£55) each way.
WHERE TO STAY• Il Palazzo at Borgo di Colleoli, 56036, Palaia (tel: 00 39 058 762 2524,
www.ilpalazzocolleoli.com). Suites from ¤120 (£95), excluding breakfast.
AND THERE'S MORE• Alabastri a Volterra, Palazzo dei Priori, 56048, Volterra. Open daily until 3 November, ¤5 (£3.95).
• Cosimo Maria Masini, 56028, San Miniato (tel: 00 39 347 623 3040). Exclusive wine tours and lunch, Mon-Fri 10am-6pm, prices vary.
• Car hire costs from ¤45 to ¤80 (£35 to £63) per day with Liberty Company (
www.libertyrent.it).
• Scotsman Reader Holidays (
www.holidays.scotsman.com) offer various trips to Italy.
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