Insight Vacations  ·  Country Roads of Tuscany & Central Italy  ·  10–18 May 2026
Pienza hilltop town Tuscany with cypress trees and rolling Val d'Orcia
Day 8 Sun 17 May San Gimignano · Val d'Orcia · Rome
Through the Val d'Orcia to Rome
The most beautiful drive in Italy. Ancient thermal waters, a Renaissance hilltop town the Pope built for himself, and the long road south through the cypress-lined landscape that painters have been trying to capture for five centuries.
Meals: ☕ Breakfast ✓ Bagno Vignoni Included ✓ Pienza Included ✨ Roman Dinner Party Optional
Weather · Val d'Orcia / Rome · Sun 17 May
27°C
Sunny and warm — a stunning day for the drive south
High 27°  ·  Low 15°  ·  UV high — sunscreen advised  ·  Light winds
‹ Day 7 · Florence Day 9 · Departure ›
⏰ Morning Departure — Important Times
07:00
Breakfast & Bags
Early breakfast at the Cappuccina. Bags outside your door — you move to Rome today.
08:00
Coach Departs
Please be onboard. The Val d'Orcia drive begins immediately — one of the great scenic routes of Italy.
10:15
Arrive Bagno Vignoni
The medieval thermal village built around a piazza that is actually a pool of hot spring water.
🚌 San Gimignano → Bagno Vignoni → Pienza → Rome
Full Day Schedule
07:00
Breakfast
Breakfast & bags — Cappuccina Country Resort
The last morning in San Gimignano. Bags outside your door before 08:00. Time to say goodbye to Tuscany properly.
08:00
Depart for Bagno Vignoni & Pienza
The coach heads south into the Val d'Orcia — UNESCO World Heritage landscape, the most painted countryside in the world. The cypress-lined roads, golden fields and stone farmhouses begin almost immediately.
10:15
Included
Arrive Bagno Vignoni
A medieval village unlike any other in Italy — built around a thermal pool rather than a piazza. The Romans bathed here. So did Lorenzo de' Medici, and St Catherine of Siena. The water is still 52°C.
11:00
Depart Bagno Vignoni
Continue through the Val d'Orcia to the hilltop town of Pienza.
12:00
Included
Arrive Pienza — orientation & free time for lunch
A Renaissance jewel on a hilltop. Pope Pius II rebuilt his hometown from scratch in 1459 to his own ideal of perfection — and it worked. Stop for Pienza pecorino, the finest sheep's cheese in Italy, at one of the shops on the main corso.
13:45
Depart Pienza
Head south through Lazio — the landscape changes from Tuscan golden to Roman amber.
16:00
Comfort Stop
Comfort stop — 15 minutes
A brief stop before the final approach to Rome.
17:00
🏭 Roma
Arrive Rome — check in to hotel
Welcome back to the Eternal City. Check in and freshen up. Tonight, Rome is yours again.
18:30
✨ Optional
Depart for the Roman Dinner Party — Tre Scalini, Piazza Navona
The optional you simply should not miss — a dinner at one of the most famous restaurants on one of the most beautiful squares on earth.
Today's Two Highlights
Bagno Vignoni thermal piazza medieval village Tuscany
Included · Val d'Orcia · 10:15
Bagno Vignoni — The Piazza That Is a Pool
Most medieval villages are built around a church square. Bagno Vignoni is built around a thermal pool of naturally hot spring water — an ancient Roman bath that became the heart of a village, and has been steaming gently ever since.

The water rises from volcanic activity deep below the Val d'Orcia at 52°C. The Etruscans used these springs. The Romans built an elaborate bathing complex here. Lorenzo de' Medici brought his court to take the waters. St Catherine of Siena bathed here and wrote some of her most celebrated letters while staying in the village. The novelist Giorgio Bassani wrote about it. Tarkovsky filmed his masterpiece Nostalghia here. Few places in Italy hold more layers of history in a smaller space.
Pienza hilltop Renaissance town Val d'Orcia Tuscany
Included · Val d'Orcia · UNESCO Heritage · 12:00
Pienza — The Pope's Perfect City
In 1459, Pope Pius II did something extraordinary: he commissioned the complete rebuilding of his small Tuscan hometown to create his ideal of the perfect Renaissance city. He brought the architect Bernardo Rossellino from Rome, gave him unlimited funds, and three years later the result was declared finished — a masterpiece of harmonious proportion still largely unchanged today.

The central piazza, the cathedral, the Palazzo Piccolomini and the bishop's palace were all built as an ensemble, perfectly scaled to each other. Pienza is tiny — barely 2,000 people — but every stone is deliberate, every sight line calculated. Walk the main corso and look south: the view over the Val d'Orcia from the city walls is considered one of the most beautiful in all of Italy. Then buy some Pienza pecorino — the celebrated sheep's cheese aged in the caves below the town, wrapped in walnut leaves and truffle.
Val d'Orcia cypress-lined road Tuscany countryside
🚌 The Drive · UNESCO World Heritage Landscape
The Val d'Orcia — Where Tuscany Becomes a Painting
The cypress-lined white road stretching toward a stone farmhouse on a hill. The rolling golden fields of the crete senesi. The lone tree in the middle of a ploughed field. The blue-grey hills fading to the horizon. You have seen this landscape a thousand times — in paintings, in films, on wine labels, in your imagination of what Italy should look like. Today you drive through it.

The Val d'Orcia was declared a UNESCO World Heritage landscape in 2004 in recognition that the scenery here — shaped over centuries by farmers, monks and Renaissance landowners — is itself a cultural achievement. Painters from Duccio to Lorenzetti depicted these hills. The light changes every hour. The road between Bagno Vignoni and Pienza is one of the great drives in Europe, and today it is simply the route between two stops.
Tonight's Optional — Roma ti aspetta
Piazza Navona Rome at sunrise Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi
Optional Experience · Roman Dinner Party · Departs 18:30
Tre Scalini — Piazza Navona
If Piazza Navona is the most beautiful square,
then Tre Scalini is the finest table there.
With Bernini's fountains lit by the Roman night,
this dinner, this piazza — are impossible to forget.
Piazza Navona is Rome at its most breathtaking — a long, oval baroque piazza built on the foundations of the Emperor Domitian's stadium, still retaining its ancient shape after two thousand years. At its centre, Bernini's Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi — the Fountain of the Four Rivers — erupts in marble drama: four giant gods representing the Nile, the Danube, the Ganges and the Río de la Plata, lit golden in the evening. The surrounding ochre palaces, the churches, the cobblestones — all of it glowing in the lamplight. This is the Rome people dream of.

At the heart of the piazza, Tre Scalini has been here since 1815 — and there is no better address in Rome. More than two centuries of welcoming the world to the most beautiful table in the Eternal City. In the 1950s and 60s it became the symbol of la dolce vita — the place where film stars, artists and intellectuals gathered to eat and be seen. Today it is still the restaurant of the piazza, still serving its legendary tartufo al cioccolato — the famous chocolate truffle ice cream it invented — still pouring the finest Roman wines, still presiding over the show with the authority of the truly irreplaceable.

To dine at Tre Scalini with Bernini's fountains ten metres from your table is not a restaurant dinner. It is a Roman evening — and there is nothing quite like it anywhere else on earth.
Piazza Navona — the most beautiful baroque square in the world, built on a Roman stadium
Tre Scalini since 1815 — the oldest and most celebrated restaurant on the piazza
Bernini's Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi lit up by night — one of Rome's most iconic sights
The legendary tartufo al cioccolato — a chocolate dessert Tre Scalini invented and the world copied
The heartbeat of la dolce vita — where Rome comes to celebrate under the stars
Tonight's Hotel
🏭
Night 8 of 9  ·  First Night Back in Rome
Rome City Hotel
Rome, Italy
Hotel details to be confirmed by Carmela — ask at check-in for any local tips.
Live Exchange Rates
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Live Exchange Rates
Euro — Today's Rate
Italy uses the Euro (€). Enter any amount to see the equivalent in US, Canadian and Australian dollars.
€ EUR
🇺🇸
$54.50
US Dollar
🇨🇦
CA$74.50
Canadian Dollar
🇦🇺
A$83.50
Australian Dollar
Indicative rates · Check with your bank before spending
Language Helper
🗣️
Language Translator
English → Italian
A few Italian words open every door in Rome — especially in a restaurant on the most beautiful piazza in the world.
🇬🇧 English 🇮🇹 Italian
Quick phrases
Hello! What a square! Table for four The tartufo! Thank you Pienza cheese? Rome is beautiful Cheers!
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