The agriturismo (an Italian agricultural-touristic agency) La Rimbecca, with its 208 hectares (aproximately 520 American acres) makes up part of the natural reserve Lucciola Bella (meaning Beautiful Firefly). It is one of eleven protected areas designated by the province of Siena for the purpose of guarding and preserving the area’s highly valuable natural, historic, and cultural resources. Containing acres of territory with habitats, as well as animal and vegetable species, of notable scientific interest and conservation, its preservation has national and European importance.

Torrente Formone

The reserve surrounds a little angle of the famous Crete Senesi ( Sienese clay foothills) which have their easternmost extention here. The clays of the Val d’Orcia are made of fresh geological sediments that were deposited during the Pliocene Period (beginning about 5 million years ago) in a deep inundation of seawater that submerged the valley and a good part of Tuscany for about a million years.  Pliocene clays, containing very fine particles, are easily eroded by rainwater that shapes it into unique patterns of erosion, among which the calanchi (eroded furrows) and the biancane (whitish round slopes, rich in clay) are most characteristic. The Luciola Bella Natural Reserve still holds several of these geomorphological forms intact.  The calanchi appear in steep slopes, like sharp crests of earth separated by gorges and hills, shaped into a complex grid created by streaming rainwater. Passing La Rimbecca by car along the Chianciano-Monte Amiata traverse (provincial road #40) in the direction toward Monte Amiata (near Cassia), one can admire on the right the landscape of calanchi that border a tract along the Formone River and make a backdrop for the charming little village of Casella Loli. For a closer view of the calanchi we advise a lovely stroll along the white trail that flanks the pebbled bed of the stream.
The biancane were formed by a very gradual erosion, rounded and then covered again, unlike the calanchi, and they form a major part of the Reserve. They are located in the high slopes grouped more or less in a widespread area, and their name derives from their typically whitish appearance, due to the florescence of thenardite, a sodium sulphate stored on the exposed, sunny flanks of the hills, sun being a key climactic trait of the area. Also, the biancane, more a carved form than eroded by water like the calanchi, are defined as “residual reliefs”: that is to say the rainwater, perhaps beginning its path on the slope’s irregular surface, has very, very slowly separated along each dome of clay, gradually etching the flanks. The biancane appear twice as beautiful from the road mounting toward La Foce, looking toward the left in the direction of the Lucciola Bella farm which is surrounded by an ample field that was saved by human intervention  with the introduction in the 1970s of new mechanical methods of agriculture that leveled the biancane to develop new, tillable lands. From this series of events emerged the agriturismo La Rimbecca, created to conserve intact some of these important geological forms.

Lago della Rimbecca

As far as vegetation, which is one of the principal natural products of the Reserve, we have the cretaceous sagebrush, a little aromatic shrub with fringed, ice-blue colored leaves, that is endemic  to Tuscany’s clay soil. In our area it grows stably on the slopes of the calanchi and the biancane, thriving due to the levels of erosion and the soil’s salinity. Greatly appealing to sheep (pecore in Italian), cretaceous sagebrush is the primary source of the unique flavor of Pecorino, the celebrated cheese of the Crete Senesi area.
In June the moon-like landscape of dry clay clothes itself in bright colors and perfumes, dominated by the yellow flowers of fragrant broom, one of the first bushes to grow on the biancane, after which follow the blackthorn, the wild elm, the juniper, and the privet. However, the clays are not the only soil in the territory hospitable to unique plant species.  On the fluvial banks of the Orcia, in the alluvial sediment, grows a variety of pioneering vegetation with bushes of helichrysum (also known as the strawflower) and Etruscan frizz, a little shrub belonging to a heterogeneous family that lives only in the riverbeds of central Italy.
The unique agricultural environment of this region marks the presence of multiple species of birds, a large part of which today are endangered. Among the birds we record the stone curlew, Montagu’s Harrier and the Hen Harrier (both hawks), the Short-Toed Eagle, the Lanner Falcone, the buzzard, the small shrike, the ortolan (Bobolink), the roller jay, the bee eater, the skylark, and the little Calandra lark. Furthermore, in the Reserve many other species of animals are present, among them the hedgehog, the weasel, wild boar, the porcupine, owl, the owlet, and the fox. Among the animals that we can encounter and observe frequently in the Reserve’s interior, we find first the roe buck, followed by the pheasant and the hare. Along the Orcia and the Formone banks we may sight the beautiful white heron, and frequently as well in the nearby pond of the farm we may see numerous species of wild ducks, particularly the malard.
The Orcia, which begins a few kilometres to the east, on Monte Cetona, flows to the foot of the protected area of the Reserve, forming a large, rocky bed, infiltrating the ravines of the Castle of the Ripa d’Orcia till it falls into the Ombrone near Monte Antico. Within the confines of the Reserve, the Orcia joins the waters of the Miglia, its right tributary and the eastern border of the protected area, while the southern portion includes a tract of the long Formone (descending from  Monte Amiata’s slope) as well as its junction with the Orcia. At the foot of La Rimbecca flows the Formone, nearly dry in the summer but abundantly flowing in winter, while nearby on the Mulinello farm and its adjoining pond, completely inside its boundaries, is the junction between the Orcia and the Formone, where there must have been, formerly, a mill from which the farm has taken its name, The Mulinello (The Windmill Farm ).