Town of Pienza in Tuscany, Italy Sep. 28, 2025

Some towns evolve slowly over centuries. Pienza? It received a full rebrand in the 1400s from a pope who wanted to prove a point—and maybe show off a little. This tiny Italian town is perched above the Val d"Orcia, surrounded by rolling hills that look exactly like you think Tuscany should: cypress trees, winding dirt roads, the occasional sheep. It"s peaceful. And then you step inside the town walls, and it gets clever.

© zpagistock/Getty Images

palette

Today in History

Shades of Fall
Sep. 28, 2023World Maritime Day
Sep. 28, 2024Gulf Islands National Seashore, Florida, USA

More Desktop Wallpapers:

Sep. 6, 2023Rethymno, Crete, Greece
Mar. 5, 2024Bangkok, Thailand
Shell-ebrating sea turtles
Oct. 10, 2025Fiji Day
Mar. 3, 2026World Wildlife Day
For Mother’s Day, we salute these marsupial moms
Finding beauty in ruins
Feb. 28, 2025Bighorn sheep in Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada, United States
Oct. 22, 2023Astoria-Megler Bridge, Oregon
Single file, now!
Sep. 17, 2025A young bull moose, Denali National Park, Alaska, United States
This lesson is going swimmingly
Family on parade
May 21, 2025International Tea Day
Check out these ‘sea cows’
Nov. 28, 2023Giving Tuesday
Apr. 13, 2026International Dark Sky Week
Who uses this grassy bridge?
Trunks packed for road
Jun. 10, 2024The city of Osaka at night, Japan
Dec. 2, 2025Whistler, British Columbia
Jun. 7, 2025International Trails Day
Dec. 31, 2023Happy New Years Eve!
Jan. 29, 2024Gollinger Waterfalls, Salzburg, Austria
Nov. 10, 2025Badlands National Park, South Dakota, United States
Feb. 19, 2024Toledo, Spain
There’s more to Pisa than leaning towers
Aug. 9, 2025International Day of the Worlds Indigenous Peoples
May 13, 2024Fish River Canyon, Namibia
Jan. 10, 2026The Matterhorn reflected in Lake Stellisee at sunrise, Zermatt, Switzerland