This article is part of the Complete Guide to Photography in Tuscany
Tuscany is an incredible region to photograph, with a wonderful variety of landscapes and cities, combined with a consistent feeling of history and culture that runs through every place you visit. However, there’s no obvious route or simple way to structure a visit to Tuscany, and different features suit different styles of photography.
You can build an itinerary focused on historic villages, or one that tours the rural landscape, and any plan needs some flexibility to discover new areas to photograph. The best starting point is Val d’Orcia (roughly in the centre of Tuscany), which acts as the centre of photography in the region and is a useful gateway to a longer trip.
This guide shows how to design an itinerary that starts with Val d’Orcia and then expands to other areas, depending on the time you have available.
7 Day Tuscany Photography Itinerary
Val d’Orcia is the highlight of photography in Tuscany, and many photographers spend their whole visit in this relatively small area. You can easily spend seven rewarding days photographing Val d’Orcia and still discover new compositions after weeks of exploring the landscape.
The photography highlights of Val d’Orcia are close enough that you can stay in a single place, allowing you to unpack and organise your gear, giving you more time to spend in the landscape. However, it’s not helpful to plan a day-by-day itinerary. Instead, you should identify the locations you want to visit and explore, design a daily structure to get out into the landscape, and adapt your plan to the conditions each day.
Where to Stay
Staying near the villages of San Quirico d’Orcia or Pienza will give you easy access to the best photography locations around Val d’Orcia, and plenty of routes to explore for something new.
By staying in this area, you won’t need to move accommodation during a visit of seven days or less, and you’ll have the least pre-dawn driving to capture sunrise in the valleys.
Once you have a base, you can start plotting known locations and a few areas to explore for new photographs. Some spots look better at sunrise, while others are more flexible in overcast or rainy conditions. By staying in one place and flexing your daily schedule, you can plan each day according to the light and conditions. It's important to research so you know the options, but being flexible can get the best from each location for the weather you have.
This article can get you started with some of the most rewarding photography locations, and my photography travel guide to Tuscany contains more than sixty locations to discover in the region.
Daily Structure
On a photography trip, it helps to design a daily structure that suits the conditions during your visit and makes the most of the light available. The landscape in Tuscany often looks best at sunrise, and you’ll need to be on location at least 45 minutes early for the best light. Sunset can interfere with an evening meal, and long days can make it very tough to photograph both ends of the day without rest in between.
While your daily structure should match the sunrise and sunset times during your visit, this is my approach for Tuscany in May:
0500: Get up for a sunrise shoot at 0600, adjusting each day to be on location at least 45 minutes before sunrise. Visit somewhere you have already scoped out so you can find your planned composition in the dark at a familiar place.
0700-0900: After sunrise, use the morning light to visit a second location, especially if the sky is forecasted to be clear and you expect harsh light later in the day.
0900-1500: Rest and explore for new locations, expecting that you might not get a great image in the middle of the day. Get some extra sleep for longer days.
1500-1700: Visit a planned pre-sunset location as the light starts to improve
1700-2000: Sunset shoot at a pre-determined location to maximise the light, timing adjusted for sunset during your visit.
If the weather is due to be clear, focus your energy on the beginning and end of the day around the best light. However, if there is a chance of patchy cloud or storms, you might get some rest in the morning and focus on afternoons when the sun can break through the cloud and send light shafts over the landscape.
Each evening, check the forecasts for the next day and choose locations from your list that will match the expected conditions.
10+ Day Tuscany Photography Itinerary
Many photographers only visit Tuscany to explore the small area of Val d’Orcia, and you can create an incredible set of photographs without needing to travel beyond a few valleys in the centre of the region.
Most photography tours to Val d’Orcia last around 6-7 days, and this can be a reasonable way to judge the time it takes to see an area. However, you can expand your visit to Tuscany by adding to your visit and building an itinerary that suits your photography style and the time you have available.
I don’t recommend particular routes or timetables in Tuscany, because so many variables will affect your choices. However, starting with a baseline of 7 days in Val d’Orcia, here are the options for expanding a visit to the rest of Tuscany.
Expansion One: More Val d’Orcia (add 3-7 Days)
Spending more time in Val d’Orcia means you’ll still be limited to one small part of Tuscany, but this could be the right choice for your photography. Val d’Orcia is the most rewarding area for photography, and a longer visit would allow you to extend beyond the most popular locations and spend more time on discovery and new compositions. You can also revisit spots in different conditions to vary the light you capture in each place.
I recommend extending your time in Val d’Orcia if you prioritise a deeper understanding of an area to improve your compositions and find more unusual spots. If you are focused on improving your photography, more time in the same place can make you more creative and able to think differently about the same landscape.
Expansion Two: South Tuscany (add 2-4 days)
There are some beautiful villages in south Tuscany, set among hills and river gorges and connected by a landscape of farmland and forest. A base around Pitigliano or Sorano would give you access to a new area with plenty of opportunity to research and discover new locations in the countryside and historic villages.
The landscape of rolling hills, cypress trees and villas that we traditionally associate with Tuscany is less evident in the south of the region, where you will find woodland and a variety of trees breaking up the view. However, it is less explored by photographers, so scoping time in this area will be more challenging but more likely to lead to something unique.
Expansion Three: Siena and Surroundings (add 4-6 days)
The distinctive landscape of Val d’Orcia continues north to Siena and gradually shifts into the hilly terrain of vineyards found in Chianti. Photographers usually concentrate on the popular, established locations of Val d’Orcia, but the landscape around Siena has many similar scenes and much more to discover.
North of Val d'Orcia, there are more tree-lined roads that limit your view, and it takes some perseverance and luck to find new spots in this area. However, many tracks lead you through areas of rolling fields and past incredible viewpoints, and it’s a great place to prioritise for landscape similar to Val d’Orcia where you are more likely to capture something unique,
Siena is also a beautiful place to explore for street scenes and historic buildings. It can be a busy destination in the summer, but this is an excellent addition of two or three days for a variation from the Tuscany landscape.
Expansion Four: Cities (add 4-6 days)
If you want to spend more time in Tuscany and balance photography and other activities, more time in the row of cities in the north of the region could be the right choice. Florence, Pisa, Livorno and other nearby towns contain some of the most interesting historic and cultural sights in Italy and are great places for street photography.
Florence has the most to offer, where you can spend days visiting museums and churches. Pisa has a few attractions outside of the Leaning Tower, and Livorno is a historic port city where you might spend a day or two. If you have enough time, add Pistoia and Lucca (both between Florence and Pisa) for more unusual destinations.
Expansion 5: Beyond Tuscany (add 7+ days)
For a longer trip to Italy that extends beyond Tuscany, there are several nearby regions that you might consider for great photography.
Cinque Terre is an iconic set of five colourful fishing villages tucked into the coastline of some incredible mountainous terrain, just three hours northwest of Tuscany. This is a popular tourist destination and not recommended for the busy summer months, but great for photography in the cooler shoulder seasons.
Bologna and Moderna are two cities north of Tuscany, where you can dedicate more time to historic streets, museums and churches. A little further northeast is the incredible hilltop city-state of San Marino, which has stunning views and a very unusual layout on a steep hill.
For more landscape photography, the most similar area to Tuscany is the neighbouring region of Umbria, an incredible photography destination in its own right. Umbria covers the foothills of the Apennine mountains and has ski resorts, mountain hiking, and its own collection of medieval villages. Some of the mountain villages in Umbria are spectacular, and this is the most logical extension to a trip to Tuscany if you are interested in the rural scenes of Val d’Orcia.
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