Italy
Val d'Orcia
Cypress-lined roads through golden fields, the landscape Renaissance painters used as their backdrop.
The road unspools between golden wheat fields and dark cypress lines, every rise revealing another composition that the Lorenzetti brothers or Piero della Francesca would recognise as their own. The light in Val d'Orcia, Italy, does something specific — it turns ordinary farmland into something that looks composed, deliberate, as if the landscape has been art-directed since the Renaissance.
Val d'Orcia is a UNESCO World Heritage cultural landscape in southern Tuscany, Italy, stretching between the towns of Montalcino, Pienza, and San Quirico d'Orcia. The valley's rolling clay hills, cypress-lined roads, and isolated farmhouses have been depicted in Italian painting since the 14th century, making it one of the most visually influential landscapes in Western art. Montalcino, on the valley's western edge, produces Brunello di Montalcino — one of Italy's most celebrated red wines, aged a minimum of five years. The thermal springs at Bagno Vignoni, where the main piazza is a 16th-century pool of hot water, and the Abbey of Sant'Antimo, a 12th-century Romanesque church where monks still chant, add layers of culture beneath the visual. The Via Francigena, the medieval pilgrimage route from Canterbury to Rome, passes directly through the valley.
Couple
This is the Tuscany of the imagination — cypress roads, wine estates, thermal baths, and golden light. Drive without a fixed plan, stop wherever the view demands it, and eat pecorino in whichever village you land.
Solo
Cycling or walking the Val d'Orcia is one of Italy's defining solo experiences. The Via Francigena trail connects the villages, and the rhythms of the landscape — rise, fall, cypress, farmhouse — become meditative.
Family
The open landscape, the thermal pools at Bagno Vignoni, and the pecorino tastings in Pienza give families a day that balances outdoor space with cultural discovery without anyone reaching for a screen.
Friends
A wine tour through Montalcino, a long lunch in Pienza, thermal springs at sunset. Val d'Orcia is built for the kind of slow, indulgent trip that a group of friends does best.
- Agriturismo options in restored farmhouses include properties with on-site olive pressing in October, when the harvest fills the stone courtyard.
- The Abbazia di Sant'Antimo in the valley below Montalcino still has Benedictine monks who sing Gregorian chant daily — the service is open to visitors.
- The Strada del Vino del Brunello di Montalcino runs through the valley — direct tastings at estates without prior booking, particularly in the shoulder months.
- Bagno Vignoni, a village built around a Renaissance thermal piazza, has a pool of warm water in its main square that Lorenzo de' Medici used for his arthritis.
Pici all'aglione, thick hand-rolled pasta in a slow-cooked garlic and tomato sauce.
Pecorino di Pienza in five stages of ageing, from milky-soft to crystalline-hard.
Brunello di Montalcino poured in the shadow of a Romanesque abbey.
La Amistad International Park
Panama
A binational cloud forest so dense and remote that vast sections remain unmapped.
La Amistad International Park
Costa Rica
A binational wilderness so vast and unexplored that scientists still discover new species inside it.
Sete Cidades
Brazil
Rock formations so orderly that scientists once debated whether a lost civilisation built them.
Wistman's Wood
England
Twisted ancient oaks dripping with moss in a silence so deep it hums.
Venice
Italy
Dawn light on a silent canal where only your footsteps echo on wet stone.
Cinque Terre
Italy
Five villages clamped to sea cliffs, connected by footpaths through terraced vineyards above surf.
Lake Como
Italy
Cypress-lined shores where water mirrors snow-capped peaks and silk merchants built their palaces.
Florence
Italy
Terracotta rooftops from Brunelleschi's dome, the Arno gold at sunset, gelato in every piazza.