Pienza, a small town near Siena, is a rare example of Renaissance town building. Defined, from time to time, the "ideal city", the "utopian city", it represents one of the best planned Renaissance towns, where a model of ideal living and governing was realized thus working out the idea of a town able to satisfy the need for a pacific, civil and hardworking living. It represented the so called utopia of the "civitas" vainly cherished by people for centuries.Pienza has at present two museum, a third one into being. Its location in the middle of Val d'Orcia, a wonderful and untouched valley, enables the town to perfectly embody the basic interest which the humanistic architecture gave to the relationship man - nature. Nowadays Pienza is part of a territorial system called "Parco artistico, naturale e culturale della Val d'Orcia", which aims at preservation of the extraordinary artistic heritage of the five boroughs which constitute it: Castiglion d'Orcia, Montalcino, San Quirico d'Orcia, Radicofani and Pienza. The center of Pienza was completely redesigned by Pope Pius II in Renaissance times. He planned to transform his birthplace into a model Renaissance town. The architect Bernardo Rossellino was commissioned to build a Duomo, papal palace and town hall, the construction were completed in three years.

TERRITORY

Tuscany is a region that today represents at best the good way of living, which expresses at the most level art, history, culture, craftsmanship and oenology/gastronomy.
Therefore you can be cradled by its predominantly rural history, with a strong agricultural tradition, whose rediscovery attracts tourists from all part of the world. 
The Tuscany territory evokes images of extraordinary beauty, a place out of the time: sweets hills, green lawns, vineyards and rows of cypresses. 
The desert of the Siena clays is contrasted by the country green, where alternated ravines and white cliffs gives light to hills bare of vegetation, coloured only by golden wheat and yellow sunflowers. In some places it seems really to look at a lunar landscape. 
If you will decide to start an itinerary in this splendid earth, you will have the occasion to gather the wealth and the beauty of every typical city or country of the region, for instance visiting Siena: universally known for its artistic heritage and for the great stylistic singularity of its urban middle age structure, as well as for the famous “Palio”. You must visit the Orcia Valley: with its sweet landscape and its villages. Montalcino: ancient middle age village, with its splendid churches devoted to St. Agostino and St. Francesco, is remembered for its architectural beauties and for the production of the special “Brunello” wine. Pienza: ideally built for people, where you can visit the Pope residence in the magnificent “Piccolomini” Palace; today is a city of great tourist and commercial stream, with large production of sheep cheeses. Montepulciano: known mainly for the majesty of its Renaissance buildings, for the elegant beauty of its churches and for the “Nobile” wine, one of the Tuscany wines more appreciated at international level. Monticchiello: where the "Poor Theatre" works from forty years with great success of drama critics and audience, becoming one of the principal cultural institutions of the area. St. Quirico of Orcia: village of Etruscan origin. Bagno Vignoni: with its rarefied atmosphere, with its warm vapours that are emitted by the great plaza of waters, is an authentic flower to the buttonhole. Thermal baths St. Filippo: the thermal waters were very appreciated since the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, rich of sulphur, calcium and magnesium, improved the health of famous figures, among which “Lorenzo il Magnifico”.

The itineraries in Tuscany represent a trip to the search of cultural roots, where feelings, tastes and perfumes help the traveller soul and fortify his energies, both of the body and the mind.