What is San Quirico d'Orcia known for?

UNESCO World Heritage cultural landscape inscribed in 2004, the rolling country shaped by Sienese governance in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Working stop on the pilgrim route from Canterbury to Rome since Sigeric described it in the tenth century, with the medieval hospital still standing. Thermal frazione where the village piazza is a sixteenth-century pool fed by hot springs at 49 degrees, used since the Etruscans.

Where is San Quirico d'Orcia?

San Quirico d'Orcia is a comune in the province of Siena, Tuscany region of Italy, about 92 kilometers from Perugia.

Tuscany · Siena

San Quirico d'Orcia

A walled stop on the Via Francigenain the UNESCO Val d'Orcia, where a twelfth-century Collegiata, a Renaissance garden and the Bagno Vignoni thermal pool sit within fifteen kilometers of each other.

92 km / 57 mi

Nearest hub (Perugia)

2,572

Population

Apr–Oct

Best time to visit

Recognised as

Why come

San Quirico d'Orcia sitson a low rise in the Val d'Orcia, the rolling clay-and-tufa landscape inscribed by UNESCO in 2004 as a cultural landscape shaped by fourteenth and fifteenth-century Sienese governance. The town was a stage on Sigeric the Serious's tenth-century Via Francigena from Canterbury to Rome and has remained a working stop on the route ever since. The Collegiata dei Santi Quirico e Giulitta was built at the end of the twelfth century over an eighth-century baptistery; the lateral portal added in 1288 is attributed to Giovanni Pisano, then working on the Siena cathedral. The Horti Leonini, the geometric boxwood garden laid out by Diomede Leoni around 1580 inside the town walls, hosts the Forme nel Verde sculpture exhibition every summer since 1971. Bagno Vignoni, the frazione five kilometers down the road, has a thermal pool at the center of its piazza, used since Etruscan times. Few comuni this small carry UNESCO, thermal and Francigena signals at once.

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Gallery

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Known for

Collegiata dei Santi Quirico e Giulitta
Romanesque parish church built late twelfth century over an eighth-century baptistery, with the 1288 lateral portal attributed to Giovanni Pisano.
Horti Leonini
Italianate boxwood garden laid out by Diomede Leoni around 1580 inside the town walls, hosting the Forme nel Verde sculpture exhibition since 1971.
Bagno Vignoni
Frazione five kilometers south, with a sixteenth-century thermal pool at the center of its piazza, fed by springs used since Etruscan times.
Palazzo Chigi
Late seventeenth-century palace on the main street, built for the Chigi-Zondadari family of Siena, now used for cultural exhibitions and concerts.
Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta
Smaller Romanesque church near Porta Cappuccini, with thirteenth-century fresco fragments and a single nave.
Val d'Orcia
UNESCO cultural landscape of cypress-lined ridges, clay crete and farmland inscribed in 2004, visible from every approach to the town.

When to visit

Best months · Apr–Oct

Best
Hot or crowded
Quiet
Mostly closed

April through June and September into October are the gold months in the Val d'Orcia: green wheat in spring, ochre stubble by autumn, low light that defines the cypress ridges. The Festa del Barbarossa runs the third Sunday of June with archery, jousts and crossbow contests between the town quarters. July and August are hot and busy; the centro storico fills with day-trippers from Pienza and Montalcino. November through March is quiet. Bagno Vignoni stays open year-round and the pool is at its strangest in winter mist. Some trattorie close. The crete senesi after rain go almost black.