Places to visit in Umbria and Tuscany
Section of our website dedicated to the places to visit in Umbria and Tuscany paying a particular attention to the sites close to Città della Pieve, which are easy to reach from our Country Resort.
Pienza
PIENZA, situated in the middle of Val d’Orcia, a small town near Siena, is a rare example of Renaissance town building.
Defined, from time to time, the “ideal city”, with Pope Pius II the center of Pienza was completely redesigned in Renaissance times; where he also realized Palazzo Piccolomini, The Cathedral and the Diocesan Museum. Also famous for its renowed “cacio di Pienza”.
Orvieto
ORVIETO is located on a pictoresque cliff of tuff. Is famous for its spectacular Cathedral, a masterpiece of Italian Gothic arts, for the well of S. Patrizio. for its museums, palaces and medieval streets, that each year attract tourists from all over the world.
Castiglione del Lago
CASTIGLIONE DEL LAGO is one of the most beautiful of Trasimeno District. The town is a castle, entirely surrounded by its fortified and castellated walls, rises on a promontory and seems to be launching itself into the waters of the lake, like a ship.
Important and beautiful to visit is Ducal Palace, painted by Pomarancio.From Castiglione del Lago you can reach Isola Polvese, an interesting island and nature reserve.
Scarzuola
A Franciscan convent founded by Saint Francis of Assisi in 1218, who planted a laurel and rose bush here and caused a water spring to gush, it is called after a marsh plant, the Scarza, which the saint used to build himself a hut.
The Church apse houses a fresco of first half of the eighteenth century depicting a levitating Saint Francis. In 1956 the convent complex was bought and restored by Milan architect Tomaso Buzzi (1900-1981) who, between 1958 and 1978, planned and erected his own ideal city, envisaged as a theatrical machine, next to the convent, Buzzi's city, which includes as many as 7 theaters, culminates in the Acropolis, a wealth of buildings consisting of a number of archetypes which, empty inside and equipped with as many volumes as one might find in a termites nest, reveal a number of visits.
A somewhat esoteric relationship was thus established between the convent (the holy city) and the theatrical workshops (the lay city), both of them laden with symbols and secrets, references and quotations. Drawing its inspiration from Francesco Colonna' Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499), the style best interpreting its license is the neo-manierism he identified in the use of stairs in all directions, the deliberate disproportion of some parts, a few gargoyles, the heaping together of buildings and monuments, resulting in a whole characterized by a surreal, labyrinthine, evocative, geometric, astronomical and magic nature.