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Baratti Bay’s Iron Age role as port for Elba’s mines helped preserve Populonia’s Etruscan necropolis – under a slag heap. Half a dozen of the tombs are visitable, several almost intact. Museo Gasparri has many of the items excavated here.

The mercantile tradition of this fast-growing city dates to 15th-century financial genius Francesco Daitini, famed “Merchant of Prato” and inventor of the promissory note. His frescoed Palazzo is one of the best preserved of its kind in Italy. Prato’s best art decorates the Duomo (see Prato’s Duomo), but the Galleria Communale has a lovely collection of early Renaissance polyptych altarpieces by such masters as Filippo Lippi and Bernardo Daddi. The half-ruined Castello dell’Imperatore (1420s), its ramparts and grassy interior now a city park, was built by Emperor Frederick II to defend the road from his German kingdom home to his lands in southern Italy.

This is little more than a modern yacht marina backed by some classy hotels with private beaches. Nearby there is riding on offer and one of Tuscany’s toughest, and prettiest, golf courses amid pine groves sloping down to the sea.

Italy is a multigenerational culture, accustomed to welcoming travelling clans. And a child attempting Italian is a great icebreaker with locals.

One car is cheaper than four sets of train tickets.

This massive, architecturally uninspired brick church of 1226 contains a portrait of St Catherine by her contemporary and friend Andrea Vanni. The saint’s mummified head and thumb are revered in a chapel decorated with frescoes on her life by Sodoma (1526) and Francesco Vanni. Matteo di Giovanni executed the saintly transept altarpieces.

This roofless 13th-century abbey and unique domed chapel on the hillside above are associated with the legend of a 12th-century soldier who plunged his sword into a stone to mark the end of his warrior ways.

Ambrogio Lorenzetti frescoes (1344) illustrate the holy vision that triggered the incident (see Miracles and Relics).

The ultimate hill town ranks second among Tuscany’s overall Top 10 for its remarkable medieval stone “skyscrapers”, fine white wine and gorgeous Gothic frescoes.

The epitome of the perfect Italian hill town. The pride of this “Medieval Manhattan” is a group of 14 stone towers that seemingly sprout from the terracotta roof tiles. San Gimignano is surrounded by patchwork fields and vineyards producing Tuscany’s best DOCG white wine.

The Town of Towers looks as Tolkeinesque as they come, a medieval fairy-tale city full of towers to climb, alleys to explore and a half-ruined fortress to clamber about. The torture museum stuffed with gruesome instruments also appeals to children.