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This locals’ restaurant sticks to its guns: Volterran dishes made only with ingredients available at market that day.

Expect to pay restaurant prices at this trattoria. Excellent local dishes, such as a thick zuppa pisana ribollita . Try the tiramisu sundae.

A rustic-but-elegant room in the Maremma. The highly regarded cooking is inspired by regional cuisine and seasonal ingredients. Bread and pasta are home-made; the wine list is vast.

One of Tuscany’s finest countryside restaurants, mixing classy service with merrymaking and refined but traditional cooking. Coniglio con olive e pinoli , rabbit with olives and pine nuts, is a scrumptious speciality.

Delightfully simple restaurant serving local cuisine. Fish dominates the menu – try the seafood fettucine or salt cod cooked with onion Livorno-style.

Da Leo is crowded with locals and buzzing with conversation. Try the zuppa ai cinque cereali , a soup filled with grains and legumes.

At the age of 26, Michelangelo took on a huge slab of marble, nicknamed “the Giant” by the sculptors of the day, and turned it into David (1501–4), an intense young man contemplating his task as a proper Renaissance humanist would. Intended for Florence’s Duomo, it first stood in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, was damaged during an anti-Medici riot, and eventually wheeled to the Accademia for safekeeping.

This was once a barracks for the Sienese army in their last stand against Florentine forces. Now its rustic rooms have serenity and comfort, with sweeping valley views from one side and lofted mini-apartments on the street side. There’s also a small pool on the terrace.

In 1998, as part of the restoration work, this 16-room hotel was installed in a wing of Sorano’s 13th-century castle. Rooms come with wooden ceilings, fantastic countryside views and 19th-century furnishings. And with the high breezes, there is little need of air-conditioning. Closed January and February.

Cosimo il Vecchio’s will saw that the sculptor never lacked for commissions; Donatello is buried near Cosimo in San Lorenzo.