Ten places, and the station four minutes away

Pisa and its Tower

1h 17 by direct train

The easiest and most underrated day out from here: a direct train, around thirteen services a day, and you get off a short walk from Piazza dei Miracoli. The tower leans by almost four metres and you can climb its 251 steps, booking a time slot.

Why it is worth it: no car, no car parks, no restricted-traffic zones. You leave after breakfast and are back for dinner.

Portovenere

36 minutes by car

The tall coloured houses that close off the gulf, and at the end of the tongue of rock the church of San Pietro, consecrated in 1198, with the sea coming in through the arches. A UNESCO site together with the Cinque Terre and the islands of Palmaria, Tino and Tinetto.

Byron's Grotto: below the church, the inlet from which the poet set out to swim across the gulf to Lerici. The plaque is still there.

The historic centre is a limited-traffic zone with cameras: leave the car in one of the car parks outside the gates.

The Carrara marble quarries

26 minutes by car

Amphitheatres of white stone cut into the Apuan Alps, where marble has been quarried for more than two thousand years: it is the stone of the David and the Pietà. You go inside the mountain by off-road vehicle or minibus, and the temperature stays around sixteen degrees even in August.

The advantage of sleeping here: from Aulla you are there in half an hour. From La Spezia or Lucca it takes twice as long, which is why very few people go.

Bring a jacket even in summer, and book on weekdays in spring or autumn. At Colonnata, just above, lardo is cured in marble basins.

Lucca and its walls

51 minutes by car

Four thousand two hundred metres of Renaissance walls, never breached, turned into a tree-lined promenade: you can walk or cycle right round the city, for free. Inside, Piazza dell'Anfiteatro still keeps the oval shape of the Roman arena.

On the Guinigi Tower centuries-old holm oaks grow on top, forty-four metres above the ground: 230 steps and one of the best views in Tuscany.

Lerici and Tellaro

26 minutes by car

On the other side of the gulf from Portovenere, with fewer crowds. At San Terenzo, the villa where Shelley spent his last months in 1822; a little further on Tellaro, one of the most beautiful villages in Italy, pink houses dropping straight into the water.

The legend of the octopus: at Tellaro they say that one night in 1660 a giant octopus grabbed the bell ropes, waking the village and foiling a pirate attack.

Florence

1h 27 by car, a full day

The Duomo, the Uffizi, the David: it needs no introduction. What it needs is the truth about the times, which is that this is a full day, not a quick hop. An hour and a half by car; there are direct trains, but only a few, so it pays to leave early.

Practical tip: book Uffizi and Accademia tickets from home, days in advance. Without them you lose hours in the queue.

Versilia and Forte dei Marmi

35 minutes by car

The Cinque Terre are beautiful but have very few beaches: when you need sand, a parasol and calm water for the children, Versilia is right next door. The pier at Forte dei Marmi was built in 1877 to load marble onto boats.

The Wednesday market in Piazza Marconi it is a small institution: over two hundred stalls, all year round.

Pontremoli and the stele statues

22 minutes by direct train

The Piagnaro castle holds the stele statues of Lunigiana: sandstone figures carved between the fourth and the first millennium BC, about which we know almost nothing. Eighty have been found in the valley.

A detail that stays with you: nine came to light at Pontevecchio, eight still driven upright into the ground, in a line, all with their faces turned west.

Barga and the Garfagnana

1h 16 by car, or by train from Aulla

The green valley between the Apuan Alps and the Apennines, with castles, caves and stone villages. Barga is known as the most Scottish town in Italy: between forty and sixty per cent of its inhabitants have relatives in Scotland, and the town is twinned with four Scottish councils.

The railway to Lucca starts from Aulla which runs the length of the Garfagnana: it is the only point in the area from which you can reach both the sea and the mountains by train.