Why Cortona is Better than Florence for Travellers
Florence is one of the greatest cities in the world. But if you want to actually feel Tuscany — not just see it — Cortona is the answer. Here's why.
Let's start with honesty: Florence is extraordinary.
The Uffizi. The Duomo. Michelangelo's David. Brunelleschi's dome. The Ponte Vecchio at golden hour. These are not overhyped — they are genuinely among the greatest achievements of human civilization, and if you have never seen them, you should.
But here is the question nobody asks before they book their Tuscany trip: is Florence actually Tuscany?
Geographically, yes. Culturally, increasingly — no.
Florence is a world city. It operates at world-city pace, world-city prices, and world-city density. Four million tourists a year. Queues for everything. An Aperol Spritz that costs €18 on a terrace designed to look like the Tuscany you came to find.
Cortona is something else entirely. And if what you are actually looking for is Tuscany — the real version, the one that made you dream about this place — Cortona is where you will find it.
The Numbers Tell the Story
Florence receives approximately 4 million tourists per year. Cortona has a permanent population of around 22,000 people spread across the entire municipality.
This is not a small difference. It is a completely different experience of a place.
In Florence, you are one of millions. In Cortona, you are a guest in a living community. The streets were not designed for tourism — they were designed for life. The bars exist because locals drink coffee there every morning, not because tourists need a photo opportunity. The restaurants serve what the farmers brought that week, not what the market research said tourists expect.
This difference is felt within the first hour of arriving.
The Tuscany You Came For
There is a specific image of Tuscany that lives in people's imaginations. Cypress trees on hillside roads. Stone farmhouses in golden light. A valley that looks like it has been painted by someone who loved it deeply. Wine poured by someone who grew the grapes. Lunch lasts two hours because nobody is in a hurry.
This Tuscany exists. But it is not in Florence.
It is in the Val di Chiana below Cortona, spreading out toward Lake Trasimeno and Umbria. It is on the road between Cortona and Montepulciano, where the cypress trees line the ridges the way they have for centuries, and the traffic is so light you can stop the car in the middle of the road to look at something without anyone honking.
It is in the upper streets of Cortona at 7am, when the mist still covers the valley and the only sound is your own footsteps on 2,700-year-old stone.
This is what people mean when they say they want to experience Tuscany. Cortona gives you that. Florence gives you something magnificent — but different.
History Without the Queue
Florence's greatest treasures are behind glass, behind barriers, behind booking systems that require you to reserve three weeks in advance.
Cortona's history is simply there.
The Etruscan walls that encircle the upper part of the town are older than Rome — built approximately 700 years before Christ by a civilization that predates the Roman Empire. You can walk along them, put your hands on them, sit on them, and eat your lunch. No ticket. No queue. No audio guide telling you how to feel.
The MAEC museum in the center of town holds one of the finest collections of Etruscan artifacts in Italy, and you can walk in on any morning without booking.
The Tumulo del Sodo — an Etruscan burial mound just outside the town — contains chambers and carved altars that archaeologists are still working to fully understand. On most days, you can visit it alone.
This is not inferior to Florence. It is a completely different relationship with history — one where the past is not curated for you but simply present, available, touchable.
Le Celle — The Sacred Site Nobody Talks About
Ten minutes from Cortona, carved into a cliff above a rushing mountain stream, is Le Celle — a Franciscan hermitage where Francis of Assisi came to pray before Assisi became famous.
This is one of the most significant Franciscan sites in the world. Monks still live there today. The cave where Francis prayed is still there. The silence is the same silence he sought.
Most people who visit Assisi never know Le Celle exists.
It is 10 minutes from Cortona. It has no entrance fee. On most days, you will have it almost to yourself.
Florence has extraordinary religious art. Cortona has a living sacred site that has been in continuous use for 800 years.
The Food Is Better — And Cheaper
This is not a popular thing to say about Florence, but it is true.
The closer you are to a major tourist center, the more the food industry optimizes for volume and margin rather than quality. Florence has extraordinary restaurants — but finding them requires knowing exactly where to look, and paying for the address.
In Cortona, the good food is the default. The market on Saturday morning has the farmers from the valley selling what they harvested that week. The trattoria that the locals go to is not hard to find — it is simply the one that does not have an English menu in the window.
The bistecca alla Fiorentina in Cortona comes from Chianina cattle raised in the valley you can see from the restaurant window. The olive oil was pressed from trees on the hillside above the town. The wine is Cortona DOC — made from grapes grown in soil you can walk on.
This is not marketing. This is geography.
Cortona Is Still Possible
The honest version of this comparison ends here: Florence is not wrong. It is one of the great cities of the world, and it deserves its reputation.
But the Tuscany that most people dream about — the quiet version, the ancient version, the version where time moves differently and beauty is completely ordinary — that Tuscany requires a different choice.
Cortona is still that place. Not yet overrun. Not yet performing for visitors. Still genuinely itself, still living the way it has lived for centuries, still capable of giving you the thing you came to find.
Come before it changes.
Experience Cortona with MyTuscanDays
MyTuscanDays is Cortona's leading private experience operator. Every experience is personal, private, and guided by someone who actually lives here — not a tour guide who commutes from Florence.
We offer private day tours, woodworking workshops, wine and olive oil tastings, and custom Tuscany experiences built around your pace and your interests.
📍 Cortona, Tuscany, Italy
📞 +39 333 4638251