Pienza attractions

Pienza has one square, one palace, one cathedral and one view, and it does not need more.

Piazza Pio II is the attraction. Laid out by Bernardo Rossellino from about 1459 as the centre of a designed town, it holds the Duomo — consecrated 29 August 1462 — Palazzo Piccolomini on the west side, the Palazzo Vescovile raised by Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia before he became Pope Alexander VI, and the Palazzo Comunale opposite the church. UNESCO inscribed the historic centre in 1996; it is described as the touchstone of Renaissance urbanism.

Palazzo Piccolomini is the one interior to go inside, on a guided visit with an audio guide that includes the Renaissance garden behind it.

The view over the Val d'Orcia from the lane behind the cathedral is the fourth attraction and the free one. The valley was inscribed by UNESCO in 2004 across 61,188 hectares, partly because painters have depicted it since the Renaissance.

Beyond that: the back lanes, which are quiet and have the town's best small details, and the countryside below, which is where you should spend the afternoon.