There are some places that remain impressed in the traveller’s mind.

It happens when you feel to be in the right place, because everything, smell, light, colours, men and nature are in harmony.

If you’re going to travel across southern Tuscany there is a place I suggest you to visit.

Without  taking the fast and comfortable Autostrada del Sole you drive the SS 2  Cassia, the road that in the Middle Age pilgrims coming from North walked through to go to Rome, whose name was “Via Francigena”

If you come from North you meet it in Siena, if from Rome you can drive it crossing Viterbo; anyway sooner or later you’ll arrive to San Quirico D’Orcia and there you must swerve in direction of Pienza and Montepulciano.

Passed the first turning you’ll immediately get the impression that here the usual beautiful Tuscan countryside that inspired the best artists, it has something different; without realizing why, you’ll slow down and I bet on one of my best bottle of wine, you’ll pull to the side, parking your car outside from the main road, and you’ll plunge into the panorama.

There isn’t a special thing that attracts your attention, anything extraordinary, but a harmony among woods, vineyards, olive trees, worked fields, the little houses built with the stones with the same colours of the clay ground around.

If you get carried away alchemy of this panorama you realize that everything is at the right place like in a well-done puzzle.

There are all the right ingredients, on your right Amiata Mountain, in front of you, up on a hill there is Pienza, the hamlet where was born the descendant of Family Piccolomini, become Pope Pio II, who sent to Rome some among the best architects of the Age, such as Rossellino and Sangallo, who raced with one to another to leave us some among the most beautiful monuments of the Age.

But it is not the monuments which make particular the panorama we are looking at, monuments are preserved as gems in the casket in the little country we can catch a glimpse of, such as Montepulciano or at our back Montalcino and if the day is clean, Cortona  as  the backdrop of the landscape.

For many with whom I talk about, the decisive touch is given from the discreet presence of man.

Its presence we perceive from the perfect grooves left from the plough, or from the geometry of vineyards and olive groves, from the cleanliness you see around the few houses, from sheep grazing in the well-defined corrals.

Perhaps here man has diverted history and legend; Eva has not eaten the apple, maybe attracted from more juicy fruit, maybe Adamo and Eva have not been chased away from this little Eden, but elected as guardians; in return they have worked at respecting nature, preserving it and  handing down orally the easy growing and cattle breeding techniques.

It’s a way to explain because this pat of ground of few square kilometre is a real horn of plenty excellent products such as Chianina cattle breed flesh, Cinta Senese breed pork, Pecorino cheese of Pienza, Nobile di Montepulciano and Brunello di Montalcino wine, extra virgin olive oil, honey and pasta of Val D’Orcia, this last made mashing the best durum wheat grown in the clay together with the pure water raising from Monte Amiata.

Pottery and wrought iron are some manufactured products of this generous land.

If we add spa springs of Chianciano, Bagno Vignoni and San Casciano Bagni, the picture seems complete.

Men of this land have made good use of these gifts; they didn’t build any factory, industry and big city, they have been able to preserve untouched nature and this is perhaps the secret of what you are looking at.

If you’ll feel these sensations I invite you to visit Pienza, possibly not in the rush hours, since often it is plenty of tourists. You can hold on visiting  Monticchiello, a little country of few hundreds inhabitants, not so lucky to have a Pope born there; here time seems to have stop its rush in the Middle Age; here in August, every year, its natives give life to an extraordinary event, “The Poor Theatre” , a real performance, that show on stage, set up in the main square, people from the village itself, “wonderful amateur comedians”

If you’ll decide to sleep near Pienza you can stop at the “Collina”, our house leading few hundred metres from Pienza in direction Montepulciano, where you’ll find a comfortable bedroom and a selection of the best food and drinks of our land; we’ll help you to organize one day wellness stay and treatments in specialised wellness centres.

The full name of our farmhouse is “ The Wishing Hill” because one day, while we were going back the itinerary above for the umpteenth time, at the sunset time Stella and I stop to look at the sunset on a little hill from where we enjoyed the show of the sun disappearing and dyeing with red  the horizon; below us there was a stone house that seemed to us so beautiful and where we would have lived….

Some propitious circumstances let us to realize the dream and to be able now to welcome you to us, so we have decided to put a garden seat on that hill to give you the opportunity to enjoy a beautiful sunset expressing a desire….many among our friend-guests say the desire has been realized.

DESCRIPTION:

10 comfortable bedrooms furnished in the respect of Tuscan tradition. Buffet breakfast, dinner based on typical products of Senese gastronomy, accompanied by wines of our production. Specialities the “bruschetta” with our extra virgin olive oils, Cinta Senese salami, the Chianina breed tender beef T-bone steak “Fiorentina”