Volterra, Tuscany, Italy, Saturday, September 22, 2012

Volterra From the Bus

Since the bus is at 0945, we get to have breakfast this morning. It is very good with bruschetta, prosciutto, salami, creme brûlée, a few different pastries and tarts, yoghurt, and a several other items. It was all excellent.
We make the long, flat, 5 minute walk to the bus stop and the bus is there but not the driver. That is OK as it is 15 minutes before departure time. We leave on time and immediately climb out of Colle. The road gets windy but it is beautiful traveling along the hills of Tuscany. The grapes are still on most of the vines but some have just been harvested. At one point we can see San Gimignano, where we were yesterday on a hill in the distance. The 50 minute ride goes fast and we are dropped off right on the edge of old town Volterra. We are going to walk down to our hotel which is outside the city walls. We switched to this hotel before we left because it was 30 Euros a night cheaper than what we had booked without breakfast and it included breakfast. The downside was it was outside the city walls and although only about a half mile from town it was all down or up depending on the direction you were going. For now, it was all down.

CNC at Etruscan Port

We walk through an old Etruscan Port and down past a small church. Another steep hill and it is mostly level to the hotel. As we are early our room is not ready, but we do get to leave our large packs which was the main goal.
Back up the hill, through the arch and we are walking the streets of Volterra. We arrive in the main Piazza and our first order of business is to confirm the bus schedule in two days and buy tickets. We stop in the TI and they direct us across the street to the bus information office. We confirm the time and connection in Colle for Siena and buy the tickets. Tomorrow is Sunday and we have found a lot of places close so that is why we are doing this today.

Annunciation by Fra Bartolomeo

While we are in the Piazza, we visit the 12th century Duomo. The pulpit is carved marble depicting all the apostles except Judas, who is under the table with an evil dragon. There is a chapel that contains a painting, Annunciation, by Fra Bartolomeo a student of Fra Angelico (whose work we saw last trip in Florence) and shows Mary being conceived by the Holy Spirit. There is also a beautiful painted wood carving of Jesus being taken down from the cross from 1228.
We exit the church and now are going to find the Saturday market. Based on where we think the hotel owner told us it was we turn down a side street to another port in the wall. We don’t find the market but do discover a very small chapel and a great view. We will have to return here. As the market ends in an hour, we backtrack and head out another port. We do not see it but see a lot of people mostly young walking with packs and such. We walk towards them before we realize they are school kids. Yes, it is Saturday, but in Italy they go to school 6 days a week for about 6 hours a day because they think the attention span of the kids wanes after that time.

At the Market

No Market so we walk along the outside of the city walls and eventually come to a traffic jam and the market itself. It is kind of like a flea market except new items being sold. Clothes, shoes, kitchen stuff, it is all here, as well as your fruit stands, cheese stands, meat stands, fish stands, and a Rosticcheria. We walk around, Carol buys twelve new pairs of shoes, and we head back inside the walls to wander.
We see a tower that has a ground floor door and then the ground floor had no interior access to the safe upper floors. Rope ladders were used to get upstairs and the doors were just wide enough for one person but definitely not an enemy with armor and weapons. We look in the church of St. Michael and window browse an alabaster gallery that is closed but has some interesting pieces. Alabaster was big business in Volterra and artisans carry on the craft today. Some of the church windows here are alabaster instead of stained glass.

Yummy Pastry

Hungry, we buy a fruit liquor pastry and a cannoli. The pastry is real good, the cannoli not so much. We eat them in the Piazza which used to be the town market place. The town hall was a symbol that Volterra was an independent city state. It had its own army, taxes, and weight and measurement systems. There is a cane cut into the town hall that was the local yardstick for over a thousand years.
We walk around some more and find a restaurant from our list that looks good so we make reservations for tonight. We exit the port here and walk along the outside of the wall towards our hotel. We are below an old Medici Fortress built in 1472 when Florence conquered Volterra. We get checked in and relax for a while.
Around 6, we head out to check out more things before dinner. The port we have been going through is an Etruscan arch built out of tufa stones in the 4th century B.C. Volterra was a key Etruscan trade center with more than 25000 people. The wall was twice the length of today’s wall. On June 30th 1944 the nazis were planning to blow up the arch to slow the allied advance. The Volterrans ripped up all the stones in the street and plugged the gate convincing the Nazi commander there was now no need to destroy it.

Medici Fortress

We walk through town and along a street that overlooks the old Roman Theater which was built around 10 B.C. There are some real old things in Volterra. We walk to an archeological park that is closed, but we can see in. It is the site where the acropolis of Volterra stood from 1500 B.C. Until 1472 when Florence burned down the political and historical center. That is when they built the Medici Fortress which I thought we could visit. As we walk below its walls, we discover that it is now a maximum security prison for special prisoners. About 60 or so high crime figures mostly mafia, are kept here to keep them far away from their families. Who knew?

Wild Boar Pasta

We have a great meal at Osteria La Pace where I get an antipasto plate and Ribolitta soup. It is a Tuscan bread soup with vegetables and is chock full of flavor. The antipasto of salami, prosciutto, tomato and cheese is also very good. We also share a plate of chingiale pasta, which has a wild boar meat sauce. It is incredibly good, full of flavor, with fresh olives in it. Bread and wine make this a very happy meal. The walk back outside the walls helps our digestion and we turn in for the evening.
CNC
“The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see”-G. K. Chesterton

Expenses
5.50E- 2 bus tickets Colle to Volterra. CPT Bus
2E-Pastry and Cannoli
4E- 2 gelato Yogurteria Gelateria Chic E Shock via delle Prigioni
28.50E- Soup, Antipasto, chingiale pasta, wine 1.50E coperto
4.88E- bottle of red, bottle of white from Despar Market
55E- Hotel Sole

Miles Walked- 9 Miles