For the most effective cardiovascular workout in Tuscany, hike up to this largely 19th-century church through the sleepy warren of steep cobbled lanes in the eastern part of town. Inside, the remains of St Margaret, the patron saint of Cortona, are on display in a 14th-century, glass-sided tomb above the main altar.

St Margaret's story is the archetypical sinner-to-saint tale. After spending her early life as a mistress and a mother to an illegitimate son, she was transformed after arriving in Cortona. After a few false-starts with local dreamboats, Margaret formed her own congregation, opened a hospital, received ecstasy-charged messages from heaven, prophesised the date of her death and surrounded herself with the poor, ill, pious and penitent. She was canonised in 1728.