The Tuff Cities
Sovana is definitely the prettiest little village in the area. It is a perfectly preserved medieval village with streets, houses and churches of the period. It is delightful to spend a day there, if anything, having lunch in one of the excellent local restaurants and shopping in the quaint craft stores, after a visit to the fascinating Etruscan Necropolis. Pope Gregory VII, Ildebrando da Sovana, one of the fundamental popes in Medieval History, was originally from here.
Pitigliano, entirely perched on a spur of tufa, is well known for its long history, which sees it as early as the Middle Ages, an important urban center of the Church State, then the capital under the Orsini family of the area. Among the picturesque alleys carved out of the tufa rock, one can encounter various craft stores, as well as the Synagogue center of the Jewish Ghetto, which during the war was an important meeting point for the area’s Jewish community.
Sorano is smaller than Pitigliano, but no less charming for that, with its historic center, made up of small alleyways set one against the other, with its stores and the Sienese Fortress that dominates the tufa rock on which the village stands.