The Val d'Orcia

The Val d'Orcia is the valley of the river Orcia, between Siena and Monte Amiata, and since 2004 it has been Unesco heritage. The reason is unusual: there are no exceptional monuments, but a farmed landscape conceived and built between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries by the Sienese, and left almost intact.

The hills are clay, sown with wheat, and their shape changes colour four times a year: green in April, yellow in June, brown in July, green again in October. The farmhouses stand on top of their holdings, and the cypresses mark the lanes and the clumps of trees in the middle of the fields.

The towns

Pienza was rebuilt by Pope Pius II between 1459 and 1462 as an ideal city, and is the first example of Renaissance town planning applied to a whole village. Montalcino sits on top of a hill and is the town of Brunello. San Quirico d'Orcia has a Romanesque collegiate church and the Horti Leonini gardens; Bagno Vignoni has a thermal pool where the square should be.

There are very few campsites in the valley, and they are small and agricultural: those camping on the coast come for the day, two hours there and two back. The white roads between the farms are drivable but narrow, and with a long vehicle it is better to stay on the provincial roads.