Places to see in Val d'Orcia

The fourteenth-century fort at the top of Montalcino, with ramparts you can walk and an enoteca inside the walls pouring the Brunello the town is built on. The view runs across the whole Val d'Orcia. The obvious place to end an afternoon of driving.

The papal palace at the centre of Pienza — a village a Renaissance pope rebuilt from scratch as an ideal town, which is why the whole place is a world heritage site. The hanging garden and the loggia look straight down the valley. An hour, and Pienza itself takes another.

A twelfth-century abbey alone in a valley of olives below Montalcino, built in pale travertine that turns gold late in the day. Almost nothing around it, which is the point. Free, and if the hours align the monastic chant in the nave is worth arranging a day around.

The small chapel on a rise between San Quirico and Pienza that appears in most photographs of this landscape, with its cypress pair and nothing else for a mile. Seen from the road or reached by a farm track on foot. Sunrise and the hour before sunset are when people come.

Sienese panel painting and church treasure in the bishop's palace on Pienza's square, small enough to see properly in half an hour. The right indoor option when the valley is under rain and the views are the reason you came.