Luxury Vacations in Tuscany

Tuscany’s filmic quality and soft, hazy light have graced many a movie, offering a scene-stealing backdrop for passion and romance. Its landscapes seduce: the serrated edge of marble and mountain in the Apuan Alps; the thermal springs in Saturnia; Val d’Orcia’s cyprus-studded hills, orchards of peaches, figs and vines.

Florence’s Renaissance-era Duomo, Lucca’s 16th-century ramparts and the walled city of Siena anchor Tuscany’s timeline, while Michelin-starred kitchens are wedged between medieval abbeys. Feast on plump pici pasta, cinta senese pork and wild boar ragu, then savor a gelato made with Amalfi lemons and Piemontese hazelnuts. There’s truffle hunting, cheese making, wine tasting, fresco painting, hiking, biking, hot-air-ballooning over the hilltop towns and undulating green countryside to be experienced here. In autumn, Frantoio, Moraiolo, Leccino are harvested. No, not fine wines (although there are plenty of those, too; this is the home of Chianti, after all), but extra virgin olive oil – liquid gold you’ll want to stash in your suitcase.