Cetona, Tuscany.

Tuscany's quiet southern borderlands — Monte Cetona's wooded slopes, the Etruscan village at its foot, and the thermal springs of San Casciano dei Bagni, where the Val d'Orcia, Val di Chiana and Val di Paglia meet.

On Cetona

Cetona,
from Smaranda.

Cetona is the quiet discovery of Tuscany's deep south-east: a medieval borgo wound in spirals around its hill below Monte Cetona, with a plane-shaded piazza that fills gently in the evening and almost no tourist economy at all. Rome's discreet set has summered here for decades precisely because nothing performs for visitors; the town simply continues. The slopes above hold the Belverde caves, inhabited from the Bronze Age, for the days when even the Val d'Orcia feels processed.

Twenty minutes east, San Casciano dei Bagni closes the argument: free thermal pools that have steamed since Etruscan times, and the archaeological find of a generation, the San Casciano bronzes, lifted intact from the sacred spring mud in 2022. Our nearest houses are the Val d'Orcia estates, about forty-five minutes north-west, which makes Cetona country the far, empty day of a southern week: caves and borgo in the morning, hot water in the afternoon, and Perugino's home town of Città della Pieve just over the Umbrian line if the day stretches.

When to come

May, June, September and October, as everywhere inland; but the thermal water makes this the rare corner that rewards a November or March visit, steam rising into cold air.

Towns worth knowing

Cetona: The spiral borgo and the piazza; evening here is the whole point.
San Casciano dei Bagni: Etruscan thermal pools and the 2022 bronzes; the free vasche below the town.
Sarteano: Castle town with the painted Etruscan tomb of the Infernal Quadriga, shown by appointment.
Chiusi: Once among the greatest Etruscan cities; its museum and tombs are the valley's serious archaeology.

Best for

Second-week quiet after the postcard country
Thermal-water devotees
Etruscan archaeology beyond the museums
Guests pairing Tuscany with Umbria

Practicalities

The A1 exit at Chiusi-Chianciano puts Cetona twenty minutes away, which makes this the easiest 'remote' corner of Tuscany to reach from Rome. From the Val d'Orcia estates allow forty-five minutes.