Welcome back to Tuscany Month, featuring another chunk of the Lost Tuscany Text, some of my favorite content that didn’t make it into the totally redesigned 2010 Lonely Planet Tuscany & Umbria.
Today’s Lost Text is the town of San Quirico d’Orcia. Although extremely atmospheric and featuring some good value eating and sleeping, San Quirico, by Tuscany standards, is merely a very rewarding road-side attraction, rather than a resounding ‘destination’, and so it got the ax during word count slashing:
Fortified. Compact. Medieval. San Quirico has the usual Tuscan adjectives and, unfortunately, few singular attractions. A one-time pilgrim pit-stop on the Via Francigena, it’s still a worthwhile place to pull over if you happen to be racing by on the SS2 between Montalcino and Pienza. Its Romanesque Collegiata is notable for its unusual three doorways, decorated with bizarre stone carvings. Inside is a triptych by Sano di Pietro. Just off Piazza della Liberta, the main square, the Horti Leononi are small, but lovely formal Italian Renaissance gardens with geometrical hedges. There’s a decidedly quiet and whimsically open tourist office at Via Dante Alighieri 33a, which also acts as the information office for the Parco Artistico Naturale e Culturale della Val d’Orcia.
The surrounding, pleasant Val d’Orcia, a land of flat, chalky plains and low-slung, pointy hills, is the latest Italian area to be declared a Unesco World Heritage Site. The equally recent Parco Artistico Naturale e Culturale della Val d’Orcia, headquartered in San Quirico d’Orcia, protects the area.
One of the better eateries in town is Trattoria Al Vecchio Forno (Via Piazzola 8; meals €30). They may be cleverly venting the kitchen’s grill out into the street, as you’ll smell it before you see it. The intimate dining room is crowded with classic photos of San Quirico and precariously stacked shelves of wine. Rabbit and Sienese pig figure heavily on the secondi list.
If you don’t have time for a sit down meal, there’s a magnificent small cheese shop (Via Dante Alighieri 113b; hours 9:30am-1pm & 4-7:30pm), an outlet for the Fattoria Pianporcino cheesemakers, where you can pick up the renowned pecorino di Pienza and other cheesy goodness.
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January 21st, 2010 at 8:51 pm
Is there an interesting cemetery associated with this? I’m always on the lookout for those…
January 22nd, 2010 at 8:05 pm
I’ve heard about San Quirico a lot, but have not been – yet. Thanks for the good pointers!
January 23rd, 2010 at 5:41 am
I’m looking for secret spots to visit.
Are there any listed in your guidebook?
January 24th, 2010 at 8:06 pm
@jkiel – I’m not sure about a cemetery. If there is one in the area, I never saw it. But then, I’m NOT usually on the lookout for that kind of thing, so I may have strolled right past it.
@Frank – Yes, the guidebook is full of super secret Tuscan spots that no one until now has ever seen. Be sure to tell all your friends. It’s the greatest guidebook ever made.
January 25th, 2010 at 4:57 pm
Hi Leif,
I want to win your new guidebook! I am so curious to read this new edition… but I also want to bother you a little bit: why Tuscany and Umbria? There are so many things to talk about Tuscany…
Ciao ciao
Barbara
January 26th, 2010 at 1:14 am
@Barbara – Tuscany because that is my area of expertise! Italy is just too big for one person to claim to be an expert on the *whole* country.