The effect from “Beast from the East” made my whole week of Italian trip on the Adriatic side of the Apennine to be miserably cold and wet, but when I crossed the Apennine to Tuscany, I was blessed with warmer temperature and some occasionally shower rain. Initially I was really happy that such kind of weather normally will create a wonderful mist in the morning, a perfect moment for photographers to make landscape photo for rolling hills of Val d’Orcia. However, when I reach Val d’Orcia area, heavy rain welcomed me, so heavy that I could not see anything except the road. I had no choice but to change my plan and directly went to Pienza. The rains continued until lunchtime and finally stopped at 2 PM, but even no rain, the sky was cloudy and rarely had sunshine, a worst element for photographing.

I drove out to San Quirico d’ Orcia from Pienza, along the way there were two famous spots for shooting photo. The first one was at the entrance road to Agriturismo Podorino B&B, the stunning view of Chapel Vitaleta on green hill from here was so lovely. Another spot was the behind the grove of trees near the bus stop before Ristorante La Taverna Del Barbarossa. From here was where the famous photo of Podere Belevede which become an iconic image of lonely mansion in Tuscany made. The view was great but because of cloudy sky I was really disappointed. After that I shortly drove to see the much-photographed Cipressi di San Quirico d'Orcia, a group of cypress trees on the green hill, the spot was really nice and because it was located next to the main highway to Siena, it was easy to understand why this place was quite well known, it even has small parking area just for quick snap. Then I drove south back to San Quirico d’ Orcia and continued to small village of Bagno Vignoni, on the small provincial road of SP 323 there was a spot to take the photo of famous rows of cypresses of Farmhouse Poggio Covili. I ended my Val d’Orcia trip at the white cascade of hot spring at Bagni San Filippo.

Val d’Orcia, in my opinion, was the beautiful landscape of Italy, the color of soil did help the effect of brilliant color of fields, and farming landscape was also almost perfect for photography that was something that not a work of nature but well-planned human design. I really enjoyed my time here and really appreciated the beauty of this manmade landscape even though it could not be considered as unique in my idea. To be honest I did not care much on Val d’Orcia’s outstanding universal value that made it to be World Heritage Site, for me this place is a great place for photography for ideal images of Tuscany and one of many must see of Italy.