Instead of the Val d'Orcia
Instead of the Val d'Orcia: hill towns within 75 minutes
Pienza is a Renaissance town plan two thousand people live in, and on an August afternoon the plan is not what you notice.
The Val d'Orcia around it is the landscape everyone came for, and it has other towns in it with the same view from the other side.
Hill towns in our catalogue within 75 minutes of Pienza by road, ranked by outside recognition. Pienza itself and the other famous places are left out. 15 towns match; the 12 best-recognised are below.
Instead of the Val d'Orcia
Pienza · 1,976 residents · Toscana
- LucignanoArezzo
Hill town · Borgo dei Borghi
- From Pienza
- 48m by car
- By train
- Reachable
- Residents
- 3,383
- When to go
- Apr–Oct
Hill town · Borghi più belli d'Italia
- From Pienza
- 53m by car
- Residents
- 1,500
- When to go
- All year
- MontalcinoSiena
Hill town · UNESCO
- From Pienza
- 34m by car
- By train
- Reachable
- Residents
- 5,611
- When to go
- Apr–Oct
- CetonaSiena
Hill town · Borghi più belli d'Italia
- From Pienza
- 1h 10m by car
- Residents
- 2,488
- When to go
- Apr–Oct
- San Quirico d'OrciaSiena
Hill town · UNESCO
- From Pienza
- 15m by car
- Residents
- 2,572
- When to go
- Apr–Oct
The 5 best-recognised of the 15 towns that match. Drive times measured by road from Pienza. More of them follow below.
Lucignano
Province: Arezzo · 400 m
A walled elliptical hill town at 400 meters between Siena and Arezzo, planned in medieval concentric rings around the goldsmith's reliquary called the Tree of Life.
San Casciano dei Bagni
Province: Siena · 582 m
A hilltop borgo at 582 meters above 42 hot springs that produced the largest Etruscan bronze hoard of the last fifty years.
- ✷ We've been
Montalcino
Province: Siena · 564 m
A walled hill town at 564 meters above the Val d'Orcia, the last fortress to hold out for the Sienese Republic and the birthplace of Brunello.
Cetona
Province: Siena · 384 m
A medieval borgo at 384 meters, sold by Cosimo I to the Vitelli in 1556 and the centro storico still shaped by their fortress reconstruction.
- ✷ We've been
San Quirico d'Orcia
Province: Siena · 409 m
A walled stop on the Via Francigena at 409 meters in the UNESCO Val d'Orcia, where a twelfth-century Collegiata, a Renaissance garden and the Bagno Vignoni thermal pool sit within fifteen kilometers of each other.
- ✷ We've been
Castelnuovo Berardenga
Province: Siena · 351 m
A commune of 351 meters, the last castle Siena built against Florence, in 1366.
Acquapendente
Province: Viterbo · 420 m
The northernmost town in Lazio, at 420 meters above the Paglia, named in 964 for its waterfalls.
Paciano
Province: Perugia · 391 m
Walled hill town of 957 people at 391 meters above the lake, three parallel streets, eight towers and three medieval gates intact.
Città della Pieve
Province: Perugia · 508 m
A red-brick hill town at 508 meters above the Valdichiana, the birthplace of Perugino and the home of Italy's narrowest alley.
Trequanda
Province: Siena · 453 m
A village of 1,166 in three hilltop borghi between Crete Senesi and Val di Chiana, with the terracotta workshops of Petroio holding to a five-hundred-year craft.
Chiusi
Province: Siena · 398 m
The Etruscan city of King Porsenna at 398 meters above the Val di Chiana, with one of Italy's major Etruscan museums and tunnels carved beneath the streets.
Castiglion Fiorentino
Province: Arezzo · 342 m
A walled hill town at 342 meters between Arezzo and Cortona, where Etruscan walls support the medieval Cassero.
Drive times measured by road from Pienza. A town with no time shown is one the router could not reach, usually because it is served by ferry. How this data is built.