A day among the Val d'Orcia film locations: from Gladiator's wheat to Tarkovsky's water square.

The Val d'Orcia has appeared in many films, and three locations fit into a day from Rome. In the morning you walk along the wheat track of the Elysian Fields in Gladiator, at the foot of Pienza, and climb to the square where the end-of-war party in The English Patient was filmed. You have lunch on a terrace over the valley in Monticchiello, and in the afternoon stop at Bagno Vignoni, the village whose square is a thermal-water pool, where Andrei Tarkovsky filmed Nostalghia. No entrance fees to pay.

The day, hour by hour

7:30 · Leave Rome. North on the A1 and minor roads towards Pienza. It takes about two and a half hours.

10:00 · The Gladiator fields. Park in Pienza and walk down to the Pieve di Corsignano, the Romanesque church on the outskirts. From there starts the dirt track that runs towards the Terrapille farm stay between cereal fields: it is the one in the film. Walk as much of it as you like and come back the same way, without going into the fields. Back in the village, go up to Piazza Pio II, the cathedral square, where the end-of-war party in The English Patient was filmed.

13:00 · Lunch at Osteria La Porta. In Monticchiello, beside the medieval gate. Ask for the terrace when you book. Pici all'aglione, bread gnocchi with sage or beef cheek in Vino Nobile. Closed on Thursdays.

15:30 · Bagno Vignoni. On the way down to San Quirico, the SP146 passes the Poggio Manzuoli estate, Maximus's house in Gladiator: it is private and from the gate you can only see the cypresses. Carry on to Bagno Vignoni, whose square is a great sixteenth-century pool of thermal water. It is the setting of Nostalghia. You cannot swim in the square, but you can go down to the Parco dei Mulini, where the water falls down the hillside.

17:00 · Return. Via San Quirico towards the A1. In Rome around half past seven.

Is it for me?

For anyone who has seen Gladiator and wants to stand on the spot, and for anyone coming to the Val d'Orcia for the landscape who likes to know where they are looking. There is little walking: you make the Pienza track as long as you like. With children it works if they can manage a morning in the sun; bring a hat and water.