The Less Visited Tuscany

My wife and I recently spent a week at a 1200-acre Tuscany estate called Compriano. She spent the week painting at the grounds there and I cruised around the area in a comfortable Audi pretty much depending on my good luck and eye to stumble upon good photographs. Oh, sure. Everyone tells you to do your research and be prepared. Yeah, okay. I perused the Internet until my eyes bled looking for places to go, but in the end, I decided to just wing it. The advantage of this is the sense of adventure and surprise one gets every day, but also, I ended up being attracted to places that weren't necessarily visited by the tourist hordes. Below are three towns I found that had a pleasant, medieval feel to them but apparently weren't on the tourist bus schedule. It was just the residents and me. And for the most part, they ignored me as I conspicuously set up my tripod or crouched low for one shot or another. I had fun.