Tuscany: A Romantic Escape to Val d'Orcia & Pienza | SIMPLY SLOW TRAVELER

Welcome to the beautiful Val d'Orcia, probably the most scenic area of all Tuscany. On this video I will take you on a perfect day in Val d'Orcia, the romantic town of Pienza, and some of the most beautiful landscapes around it. My day started in a very small but picturesque town just 20 minutes off Pienza, the ancient thermal baths village of Bagnu Vignani. The whole village is built around the central basin, where is located the source of the hot spring that attracts many people from all around Tuscany and Italy. Around this basin, you will find a few restaurants and cafes, with their terraces set out on the old cobbled streets, surrounded by lots of greenery and flowers. Right on the middle of the basin, the water bubbles tirelessly, as it's been doing for centuries now. You can also find a few stores in Bagnu Vignani, selling homeware and home decorations, perfumes and scents, books and many other things. A couple hotels and spas also exist in and around the village. You feel the calmness flooding the air in the village, it certainly has the perfect atmosphere for relaxation and enjoyment of the thermal waters that spring from the earth below. Another way of making the most of this unique place in Tuscany, is to head down to the Parco dei Mulini, just a couple steps away from the village center, and just below it, you can find a free-access thermal waters pool, surrounded by nothing but nature. This is a perfect spot for an hour of relaxation, especially in the morning time, when you are more likely to find yourself alone there, and just admire in full tranquility, the beauty surrounding you. After leaving Bagnu Vignani, we started making way towards Pienza, but not without stopping along the way, in some of the postcard views of Val d'Orcia, with its cypress-lined roads leading to hilltop farmhouses, the rolling vibrant green hills turned golden under the Tuscan sun, and the morning fog floating above them afar. I suggest going off-road and taking your time exploring the scenic landscapes, walking along the dirt roads, and just letting the whole beauty of the region in. At mid-morning, we finally arrived to Pienza, and our first stop was the Piccolomini Palace. This palace is right at the town center, and was the home of the Piccolomini family, whose most notable member became Pope Pius II. It was him who commissioned the construction of this early renaissance palace, with expansive views over Val d'Orcia. It was built at the central location on his hometown of Corsignano, which he turned into the Pienza we know today through an extensive urban redesign. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to film inside the palace, which features extensive furniture and decoration from the 15th and 16th centuries. However, I can show you the views from the back balcony over the garden and the hills, which are nothing short of breathtaking. It is easy to see why the Pope would have wanted to build here his own family's palace. As the morning progressed, the skies got clearer and clearer. Under the bright sunlight and with the roses in full bloom, the garden becomes very colorful, and being enclosed within high walls with nothing but views of the Tuscan hills through the three windows on the walls definitely makes you feel like you are in a little corner of heaven. After an hour or so in the palace, we went exploring the picture-perfect streets of Pienza. This is not a very large town, but its many alleyways, stemming from the main street running rent-wise through its middle, have so many beautiful corners that it is easy to wander around Pienza for a couple of hours and completely lose track of time. I stopped here and there at a few stores, but especially liked this one, selling home decorations, and fell in love with their table linens and cottons, and I bought a few and embroideries of Tuscan seams. For lunch, we sat at the outside terrace of the very traditional restaurant, Sette di Uni, where we ate a selection of tapas and cold cuts, along with a glass of the local Chianti wine that we would serve ourselves from its traditional bottle. We finished off with the traditional Cantucci biscuits. For an even sweeter treat, we went for artisanal ice cream at Gelateria Freddo. Besides very creamy ice creams, you can also find here some other Italian sweets and chocolates. After some more walking around town and stopping at a few other stores, such as this one selling all sorts of liquid and solid form home scents, we went out to explore Val d'Orcia for the afternoon hours. The road connecting Pienza to San Chirico d'Orcia is probably one of the most scenic in all Tuscany, with many mandatory stops to admire the landscapes that have seemingly been frozen in time. On my Tuscany travel guide, you will find the geotags that will take you directly to all of the most idyllic viewpoints in this beautiful region. The only distinguishable movement in the midst of this tranquility is the tall grass swaying in the wind as though gentle shivers are running through the hillsides basking under the Tuscan afternoon sun. Towards the end of the afternoon, we ventured out through the country dirt roads around Pienza, with vineyards laying on both sides and cypress-lined paths cutting through them. In some places, these would beautifully zigzag up and down the hills, casting their pointy shadows longer and longer as the sun sinks in the west and the evening starts falling on the landscape. the streets of Pienza were much calmer than in the morning, and the moody alleyways with the store's windows lights on made it look very magical. As night fell, we went for dinner at the restaurant Sperone Nudo, right in the heart of Pienza. We had a selection of local cheeses and gems for starters, and a delicious saffron and red wine risotto for main. That was the best and warmest way to finish a memorable day exploring the beauty of Pienza and Val d'Orcia. Don't forget to subscribe to not miss new videos of my trips around the most beautiful regions and villages of Italian Europe. I hope to see you on my next week's video!