Tuscany has a pricey rep. You can spend hundreds on a hotel room or luxury villa, travel everywhere by car (diesel €1.75 a litre), and shop Florence's Via Tornabuoni boutiques. You can eat four courses, wash it down with a bottle of Brunello di Montalcino (€50 and up), then climb the Leaning Tower of Pisa (€17 for half an hour). You can do all this, and it's great. It really is.
But it's not the only way to see Tuscany, and the cheaper alternative need not take you "off the beaten track" in search of "undiscovered gems", and all those other travel cliches. You can see the same amazing sights as everyone else, if sometimes from a different angle. You may have to forgo the Frette linens and evening turn-down service, but you don't need to pack your pop-up tent. And welcome shifts in the pound-euro exchange rate are giving a little extra help this summer.
Florence
This city has been separating visitors from their spending money since before the Renaissance. Yet Florence makes a good base for the cost-conscious. Restaurants and hotels are plentiful. You can walk everywhere and are at the hub of the region's transport network. There's even a list maintained by the tourist office, "Firenze a costo zero", if you have no budget at all.
Accommodation in the centre isn't especially cheap. My favourite is Locanda Orchidea (+39 055 248 0346, hotelorchideaflorence.it, doubles from €50). Get a quiet, traditional room overlooking the leafy courtyard. Bathrooms are shared. Though billed as a hostel, Plus Florence (+39 055 628 6347, plushostels.com/plusflorence, en suite rooms from €45) has amenities that would put hotels four times the price to shame, including a new outdoor pool and Turkish bath. It's an ugly building, but great value.
If you're visiting in August, haggle with somewhere in a higher price category. The city is hot, steamy and deserted (apart from tourists), so deals are plentiful. When hunting online for cheap rooms, there are addresses I avoid: Via Nazionale, Via XXVII Aprile, Piazza dell'Unità Italiana, Via della Scala, and Via Por Santa Maria can all be noisy.
For food, steer clear of the streets between Piazza della Signoria and Piazza del Duomo, with the exception of Le Mossacce (+39 055 294361, trattorialemossacce.it), a rowdy place that serves the likes of spezzatino (veal stew) at €9 a plate. I also like rough-and-ready Da Rocco (lunch only), inside the Mercato Sant'Ambrogio. The menu is short, but tasty and cheap. South-west of the centre, but still walkable, Sabatino (Via Pisana 2, +39 055 225955) is a friendly diner stuck in the Florentine 1950s. Hearty mains like stuffed roast chicken cost around €5.
The Uffizi and Accademia (David) cost from €15 and €11 respectively, unless it's your birthday, when they're free. A discount Firenze Card (firenzecard.it) gets you into those two and a lot more over 72 hours for €50. But you can see amazing art for nothing in several city churches. The cloister at Santissima Annunziata is a gallery of mannerist frescoes, starring Del Sarto and Rosso Fiorentino. The masterpiece of recluse Pontormo is his Deposition, inside Santa Felicita. Santa Trínita has wall art by Lorenzo Monaco and Domenico Ghirlandaio. The city has multiple versions of the Last Supper: by Ghirlandaio, in Ognissanti (where there's also a Botticelli); by Andrea del Castagno in Sant'Appolonia. The panorama from the steps outside San Miniato al Monte, south of the Arno, is better than any paid-for viewing point in the city. You can bag a free art guided tour, sometimes in English, from Ars et Fides (+39 055 276 3757, arsetfidesfirenze.it). The website has a timetable.
Temporary show Americans in Florence: Sargent and the American Impressionists runs until 15 July at the Palazzo Strozzi (+39 055 264 5155, palazzostrozzi.org). Admission costs €10, but is two-for-one between 6pm and 11pm on Thursdays – or cheaper still, download the exhibition catalogue from the iBook store, at 99cents until 31May.
For shopping, skip the Guccis and Ferragamos of Via Tornabuoni in favour of the indie stores along Borgo degli Albizi. I also poke around the flea market in Piazza dei Ciompi; last time I was there, I picked up a fistful of vintage postcards and some costume jewellery for under €10.
If you've eaten well and late at lunch, maxing out on aperitivo should be enough for dinner. The drill is straightforward: there's a buffet piled high with simple dishes and hearty salads. As long as you're drinking (slowly, slowly is fine), you can usually eat while the buffet is out (generally 7 to 9-ish). Negroni (Via dei Renai 17, negronibar.com, co*cktails €7) is usually jumping. At Derb (Via Faenza 21, derb.it), a co*cktail and plentiful North African aperitivo (plus music) costs €7.
Clubs are pricey, so cap the evening with a free organ concert at Santa Maria de' Ricci (Via del Corso, +39 055 215044) or something eclectic at Le Murate (Piazza delle Murate, lemurate.it). Free magazine The Florentine (theflorentine.net), out every second Thursday, always has listings for cheap events. ArtTrav.com is worth bookmarking for reviews and openings.
A wine tour of Chianti … by public bus
To see the vine-cloaked backroads, you need to hire a car or join an expensive tour. Fortunately, the most famous wine road in Tuscany, the Chiantigiana, is also a bus route.
It's a scenic hour from Florence to Panzano – catch the Firenze to Gaiole bus, via Greve and Radda. Wander up into the old village as far as the Accademia del Buon Gusto (Piazza Ricasoli 11, +39 055 856 0159, accademiadelbuongusto.com), an enoteca where tasting is "without obligation". Owner Stefano Salvadori is such a knowledgeable host that you'll definitely buy something, but it needn't be pricey. Eat lunch at Dario DOC (Via XX Luglio 11, +39 055 852020, dariocecchini.com). The "fast-food" outlet of celebrated Panzano butcher Dario Cecchini is a lively spot with communal tables, and top value at €10 for a breaded burger, sage and garlic chips, salads and water. Walk it off: alittle south of the village are views over the Conca d'Oro (Golden Shell), one of the winelands' most picturesque tracts.
Hop on the bus back north to Greve, Chianti's "capital", to see the triangular piazza and browse an enoteca or two. Take another bus north one stop to Greti, and the roadside tasting room of Castello di Verrazzano (Via Citille 32, +39 055 854243, verrazzano.com). It's free to taste here, and there are affordable bottles from this top-notch estate. The last bus back to Florence leaves at 8pm weekdays, 5pm on Saturdays, but forget it on a Sunday. See acvbus.it for timetables. Tickets for the whole journey will total under €10.
Central Tuscany and Siena
The central Tuscan hills are unmissable, but tricky on the cheap, because medieval San Gimignano is a tourist magnet. It's best tackled by switching your base to Siena. The Florence to Siena bus (€8) is quicker than the train. From Siena, eschew an escorted tour to San Gim. Direct buses leave hourly in the morning (sangimignano.net, €12 return). San Gimignano's church of Sant'Agostino has a frescoed apse by Florentine Benozzo Gozzoli that's free to see. The Torre Grossa, the tallest of San Gim's towers, has great views. But if you walk uphill behind the Collegiata, opposite, to the ruined Rocca (fortress), you get the same sublime views – out over vine-clad hills – gratis. Contemporary Galleria Continua (+39 0577 943134, galleriacontinua.com) is free, with an Antony Gormley show running until 20August.
You can take a guided walk-with-views through those hills for €20 a head. Better, the tourist office (Piazza del Duomo 1, +39 0577 940008) sells a hiking map for €8 and you can guide yourself. San Gimignano's spiky towers are visible for miles around – it's practically impossible to get lost.
I usually eat at tiny, unshowy Chiribiri (Piazza della Madonna 1, +39 0577 941948), because Tuscan classics cost about €3 less than anywhere else in town, and it's open all day, 11 until 11, so when I'm with my children they eat at their normal times. Mains cost from €8-10 (cash only). Decent cheap rooms are hard to come by in San Gimignano, so catch an early evening bus back to Siena.
Central budget rooms here can be a little spartan – you're paying to lodge at the heart of one of Europe's best preserved medieval towns, not for the decor. My top choice is Alma Domus (Via Camporegio 37, +39 0577 44177, hotelalmadomus.it, doubles from €66 B&B); request a room with a view. For somewhere with panache, you'll need to stretch the budget, for example to Antica Residenza Cícogna (Via dei Termini 67, +39 0577 285613, anticaresidenzacicogna.it, doubles from €87 B&B).
The best free art in Siena is at the Archivio di Stato (Via Banchi di Sotto 52, +39 0577 247145). Inside are the tavolette della biccherna, medieval wooden covers (for the civic accounts) painted by Siena's leading artists. For €12, the Opa Si Pass (operaduomo.siena.it) gets you half-price entry to everything arty around Piazza del Duomo, including up the Facciatone, for a better (and cheaper) view than the Campo's Torre del Mangia. If you can't stretch to that, follow St Catherine for free: she was born at the Casa di Santa Caterina, now an ornate oratory with a 16th-century majolica floor, and is now in the nearby church of San Domenico – her shrivelled, venerated head, anyway.
The pungent delis along Via di Città and Banchi di Sopra are tempting, but expensive, for lunch. Behind the Palazzo Pubblico at Gino Cacino (Piazza del Mercato 31, +39 0577 223076, ginocacinosinena.it), Gino will load you a hefty roll with salami and pecorino sott'olio (ewe's milk cheese preserved in olive oil) for around €4. Grab a snug dinner at La Chiacchera (Costa di San Antonio 4, +39 0577 280631, osterialachiacchera.it), where there's no main over €9.
The vineyards of the south‑east
There is a bus service linking Siena with Montalcino, Pienza, and Montepulciano, but it's slow and erratic, so you'll need a car to explore this most scenic bit of Tuscany. Detour via the SS438 through Asciano and the Crete Senesi, otherworldly clay hills whose lonely ridges are spiked with cypress trees. Stop en route for the Signorelli and Sodoma frescoes at the monastery of Monte Oliveto Maggiore (monte-oliveto.com), which are also free to view. You can stay with the Olivetan monks, in a private double room, from €62 (monasterystays.com) or make an overnight stop in Pienza, where Il Giardino Segreto (Via Condotti 13, +39 0578 748539, ilgiardinosegretopienza.it, doubles from €55 room only) has simple rooms ranged round a peaceful garden.
Unmissable art freebies around the Val d'Orcia include Pienza's Duomo, an Austrian-style Renaissance church whose Sienese altarpieces remain where they were originally placed by Pope Pius II (most in Tuscany have been shifted to museums); and the honey-coloured travertine Collegiata in San Quirico. A guided tour at one of Italy's top wine cantinas, Poggio Antico in Montalcino (+39 0577 848044, poggioantico.com), is also free, and in English. Call in the morning to check times. Tasting afterwards costs, but starts at just €2 (up to €25) depending on how many wines are sampled. Leave time for mass conducted in chant at the nearby Romanesque abbey of Sant'Antimo (antimo.it). Contact Montalcino's tourist office (Costa del Municipio 1, +39 0577 849331, prolocomontalcino.it) to double-check the chant schedule. Anyone dressed "respectfully" is welcome.
For boutique B&B bargains, head south-east to Etruscan Chiusi, where Casa Toscana (+39 0578 222227, bandbcasatoscana.it, doubles €60 B&B) is a villa with spacious, colour-washed rooms. A half-hour guided exploration of Chiusi's Etruscan tunnels costs just €3 (+39 0578 67111, tourism.intoscana.it).
North of here, my favourite bargain lodging in Tuscany is stylish Vizi Ottavo (+39 334 587 4174, viziottavo.com, B&B doubles from €70) in sleepy Castiglion Fiorentino, whose rooms are themed on the seven deadly sins. Use it as a base to explore pricier Cortona and Arezzo, both within 15 miles.
Donald Strachan is the co-author of Frommer's Florence, Tuscany & Umbria, John Wiley & Sons, £16.99
