Crete Senesi

The zone of grey clay hills southeast of Siena, known as the Crete Senesi or the Sienese badlands, presents a stark, undulating landscape largely devoid of trees, stripped to bare soil by centuries of erosion. Isolated farmhouses on ridges, solitary cypress trees, and the biancane—rounded clay formations—compose a lunar terrain that has served as a backdrop in numerous Italian films. The light in winter and early spring, when the ploughed fields show their varied greys and ochres, is particularly photogenic.