Tuscany's rolling hills and cypress-lined roads
The Val d'Orcia, south of Siena, is the Tuscany of postcards: rolling wheat fields, lines of cypress trees and farmhouses on hilltops, protected as a UNESCO cultural landscape. Pienza is an ideal Renaissance town and the place for pecorino cheese, Montalcino produces Brunello wine and Montepulciano its Vino Nobile. Drive the back roads at sunrise or sunset, soak in the thermal pools of Bagno Vignoni and stay on an agriturismo farm.