Where to stay in Tuscany: the best towns and hotels

Florence is compact, gorgeous and relentlessly beautiful. Brunelleschi's dome rises over a skyline of terracotta roofs, the Uffizi and the Accademia hold Botticelli and Michelangelo's David, and the Ponte Vecchio, lined with goldsmiths, has crossed the Arno for centuries. In the evening, the lanes of Santa Croce and the Oltrarno fill with wine bars and trattorias.

Stay in the historic centre and you'll walk everywhere. The finest hotels sit in palazzi on smart Via Tornabuoni or directly on the river near the Ponte Vecchio, and there are charming boutique hotels in restored palazzi a stroll from the cathedral. Florence airport is close to the city; most UK flights land at Pisa, about an hour away by train or car.

Want Florence by day and a pool, olive groves and birdsong by night? Head into the hills just south of the city. Impruneta is a small town famous for its terracotta, and the countryside around it is dotted with old villas and estates turned into hotels, some with views back to the Duomo.

The choice is broad: a food-and-wine resort in a 15th-century hamlet once owned by a branch of the Medici, a villa with a panoramic pool looking over Florence, and a farm of vineyards and olive trees with self-catering apartments about 7 km from the centre. You'll want a car.

San Gimignano's skyline of medieval stone towers is one of the great sights of Tuscany, and the walled town behind them is a UNESCO-listed maze of piazzas and gelato shops. It gets crowded by day; stay nearby and you'll have it to yourself in the evening light.

The best places to sleep are just outside the walls or out in the vines: an elegant hotel with a pool 400 metres from the town gate, a country resort a couple of kilometres out, and farmhouses with their own wine and views over olive groves. Siena, with its shell-shaped Piazza del Campo and its striped cathedral, is within easy reach for a day.

Montepulciano is a long, steep hill town of Renaissance palazzi and cellars cut deep into the rock, where Vino Nobile has been made for centuries. From its walls you look out over the Val d'Orcia on one side and the Val di Chiana on the other: the cypress-dotted, gently rolling countryside that ends up on half the postcards in Italy.

Stay in a palazzo in the heart of town, with apartments and B&B rooms steps from the main square, or out in the countryside, where a luxurious historic estate on the outskirts has frescoed rooms and exotic gardens. Nearby Chianciano Terme is a spa town with plenty of good-value hotels.

Montalcino is a small walled town with a big reputation. Its fortress looks out over vineyards that make Brunello, one of Italy's most celebrated reds, and the surrounding hills are dotted with estates where tasting rooms and long lunches are the main activity.

Accommodation is spread through the countryside rather than in town: a wine estate's own relais looking towards Mount Amiata and the Orcia river, a vast estate resort with a golf course, spa and two outdoor pools, and small country B&Bs. This is the place to slow right down.

Volterra sits high on a ridge in the west of Tuscany, a sterner, less polished hill town than San Gimignano and all the better for it. It has Etruscan gates, a Roman theatre, medieval squares and workshops where craftsmen still carve the local alabaster.

Hotels are good value: an upscale little hotel in the heart of town, a garden hotel with a pool a few minutes' walk from the centre and views over the hills, and a four-star with a restaurant serving regional cooking.

Pisa is where most UK visitors land, and it deserves more than a quick selfie with the tower. The Field of Miracles, with its gleaming white cathedral, baptistery and that famously tilting campanile, is one of the great ensembles of Italian architecture, and the university town around it is lively and good value.

For something special, look a few kilometres out of town to San Giuliano Terme, where the Grand Duke of Tuscany's 18th-century summer palace is now a thermal spa hotel. Smaller places around San Giuliano are about a 15-minute drive from the Leaning Tower. Livorno, the port, is down the coast.

Montecatini Terme was built for taking the waters, and it still feels like it: broad tree-lined avenues, grand thermal establishments in vast parks, and hotels with Art Nouveau façades. It sits halfway between Florence and Pisa, each roughly a 40-minute drive away, with Lucca and Pistoia closer still, which makes it a smart and good-value touring base.

Choose from grand old hotels beside the thermal park, a resort and golf hotel built around hot springs, and a boutique spa in a 16th-century monastery in a medieval hill village. Several hotels in town have pools and spas of their own.

Forte dei Marmi is the Versilia coast at its most polished. A long, sandy beach is lined with neat rows of striped umbrellas belonging to its beach clubs, the little town behind has smart boutiques and a weekly market, and the Apuan Alps rise dramatically inland, their peaks streaked white with the marble quarries of Carrara.

Hotels range from a luxury address steps from its own private beach to four-stars a short walk or bike ride from the sand, one beside a golf course with a spa. Families love it for the calm sea and the bike-friendly streets.

Viareggio is Versilia's biggest resort, famous for its carnival and its seafront promenade lined with Art Nouveau buildings. The beach is long and sandy, the evening passeggiata is a family affair, and Pisa airport is only about 20 km away.

The grand old hotels sit right on the promenade, including the town's very first hotel, from 1871. Next door, Lido di Camaiore carries on the same wide beach in a calmer key, with a seafront hotel with a rooftop bar and a heated pool, and plenty of good-value places a short walk from the sand. Lucca, with its tree-lined walls, makes a fine day out inland.