“The Val d’Orcia is an exceptional reflection of the way the landscape was rewritten in pre-Renaissance times to reflect the ideals of good governance and to create an aesthetically pleasing picture celebrated by painters from the Siennese school. The Val d’Orcia has come to be seen as icon of the landscape which has profoundly influenced the development of landscape thinking”. (Quote: UNESCO).

Make your dreams come true in the dreamy Tuscan landscape: the rolling hills dotted with cypresses, eulogized by poets, painters, and masters of cinema and photography.

Pienza is the first stop-over of the itinerary: it would be a mistake to miss the ideal city of the Renaissance, laid out by the architect Bernardo Rossellino for Pope Pius II, born Enea Silvio Piccolomini, one of the most important humanist popes and patrons of history. The hamlet, originally called Corsignano, turned its name into Pienza (city of Pius) in 1462, under the will of Pope Pius II. 

We will visit the small formal gardens of Palazzo Piccolomini, a real window where to admire the beauty of the Siennese landscape in its enterity. The shooting for the TV series “I Medici” took place between the garden and the courtyard of Palazzo Piccolomini, chosen as the Medici dynasty’s dwelling.  Well-known for the landscape architecture and Renaissance urbanism, Pienza is also the pecorino cheese’s homeland: it is the ideal place where to eat, in order to pay homage to the traditions of  the Tuscan art of cooking.

In the afternoon, we will reach Villa La Foce. Laid out between 1924 and 1939 by the architect Cecil Pinsent for Antonio and Iris Origo, Villa La Foce is a magnificent estate, facing the Crete Senesi, embroidered by the yellow blooming of the brooms. The garden consists of the Lemon Garden, the scented English Garden, the long wisteria pergola, the staircase edged by cypresses leading to the wilderness dominated by the Venetian statue of the Moor, and the splendid formal garden, a masterpiece of topiary, sculpted into the box and the cypresses, a true amphitheatre which embraces the surrounding panorama and the iconic Cypress Lane, laid out by Cecil Pinsent.

We will conclude our day with an evokative stroll to the Chapel of the Madonna di Vitaleta, one of the most mystic places of Tuscany. The small Chapel is protected by a fringe of cypresses and it is nestled on the Siennese hills, close to San Quirico d’Orcia, between iconic cypress views, eternally immortalised by famous movies, as “The Gladiator”.