Val d’Orcia

1. 1

   Palazzo Chigi Zondadari, San Quirico d’Orcia

   A palace in the heart of San Quirico, designed by Carlo Fontana. The comune celebrates civil weddings in its seventeenth-century rooms or in the Teatrino, a small nineteenth-century theatre built into the arcades — a good choice when the weather is uncertain.

2. 2

   The Horti Leonini and the town’s gardens

   San Quirico also marries couples outdoors: in the Horti Leonini, an Italian garden laid out in the sixteenth century by Diomede Leoni; in the Giardino Nilde Iotti, the garden of Palazzo Chigi; and in the town’s rose garden — a garden ceremony with legal effect.

3. 3

   Bagno Vignoni’s loggia

   In Bagno Vignoni, a hamlet of San Quirico, the main square is a sixteenth-century pool of thermal water. The valley’s tourism site suggests the Loggiato di Santa Caterina, on the square, for exchanging vows; for a small symbolic ceremony, ask the comune what is possible.

4. 4

   Farmhouses and estates

   Most dinners happen at a farmhouse, an agriturismo or a whole estate; near Montalcino, Castiglion del Bosco is a village of its own, with a medieval borgo, castle ruins from the 1100s and a church frescoed by Pietro Lorenzetti. Unless its comune lists a venue for civil weddings, the ceremony there is symbolic.

The valley has no long-term station of its own; Siena’s, at 350 m to the north, averages highs of 30.5 °C in July and 30.7 °C in August, with about ten days a year above 34 °C (LaMMA, 1991–2020) — and the open hills have little shade. July is the driest month (29 mm), November the wettest (125 mm). Late May, June and September are the easiest months for a dinner outside. In spring and autumn the mornings often start with mist in the valleys, worth an early alarm.