An iconic landscape and a symbol of Tuscany (and Italy) worldwide, the Val d'Orcia is an area of legendary beauty, recognised as a World Heritage Site in 2004. If you were asked to choose one image to represent Italy's most famous region abroad, you would probably think of these soft, colourful hills inland from Siena, on the border with Umbria.

In the words of UNESCO, the Val d'Orcia is “an exceptional reflection of the way the landscape was re-written in Renaissance times to reflect the ideals of good governance and to create an aesthetically pleasing picture”. Over the centuries, this bucolic environment has made its way into the collective imagination as a marvellous pictorial subject in the depictions of Sienese school masters.