Along the Gladiator Road in Pienza

The Val d'Orcia is like a precious treasure: the ancient roads of Val d'Orcia, the Via Francigena, the Via Cassia and many others, offer a great variety of itineraries.
This is the first section of a splendid trail, 'Pienza, along the Gladiator road to the Vitaleta Chapel', (circular walk, 11,25 km), where you walk through the countryside with its green smooth hills, softly curved dirt roads and isolated cypress trees lining the horizon, ending at the Chapel of Our Lady of Vitaleta, a small chapel that was the subject of so many postcards. You walk back to Pienza, along the via Santa Caterina to enjoy the most beautiful views on the Val d’Orcia one can imagine. This panoramic walkway brings you back to the city Gate and Piazza Dante Alighieri.
This first stretch of the itinerary. Starting beyond the Pieve di Corsignano, you walk along the famous 'Gladiator road'. This area was the exact setting for the breathtaking panoramic countryside scenes from Ridley Scott’s Gladiator.
When we arrive at Podere Terrapille, we walk back to Pienza or continue to the Capella Vitaleta. To continue, download gpx tracks on our website.
According to UNESCO World Heritage Centre, the landscape of Val d'Orcia is part of the agricultural hinterland of Siena, redrawn and developed when it was integrated into the territory of the city-state in the 14th and 15th centuries to reflect an idealized model of good governance and to create an aesthetically pleasing picture. The landscape’s distinctive aesthetics, flat chalk plains out of which rise almost conical hills with fortified settlements on top, inspired many artists. Their images have come to exemplify the beauty of well-managed Renaissance agricultural landscapes. The inscription covers an agrarian and pastoral landscape reflecting innovative land-management systems; towns and villages; farmhouses; and the Roman Via Francigena and its associated abbeys, inns, shrines, bridges, etc.