Nobody warns you how quickly it happens. For most of spring Val d’Orcia is green, the soft bright green of young wheat. Then in the second week of June it turns, field by field, to gold.
How to spend the golden week
The best way to see it is to do very little. Take coffee onto the loggia at six, before the heat. Walk the white road towards Vitaleta and come back before eleven. Sleep through the afternoon, the way everyone here does.
For four days the whole valley is the colour of bread crust, and then the combines come.
In the evening, drive to the wall at Pienza and watch the light go. You will understand why so many painters stayed.