In 1459 pope Pius II Piccolomini decided to turn his native village into the Renaissance's "ideal city": in three years the architect Rossellino drew the square, cathedral, palace and the perfect perspective that still enchants. Pienza has been UNESCO-listed since 1996 — eight years before the surrounding Val d'Orcia — and it is the belvedere par excellence over Tuscany's most photographed clay hills and cypress lanes.
Palazzo Piccolomini, its hanging garden facing Mount Amiata, is open to visits; the lanes of Love and of the Kiss keep their names' promises. Pienza's pecorino, aged in barrels or under ash, is the town's other monument.
Near Pienza
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
