more reporting on my recent trip to Italy...
Day Four:
Volterra/San Gemignano
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| another beautiful villa sunrise |
When I first started doing research for the trip, I really
wanted to check out Volterra and San Gimignano, two ancient cities, one walled
and one towered. But as time went on, and our group discussed the
itinerary, we felt like we needed a different kind of location at least one of the days, so we decided to
head to the Cinque Terre, often described as one of the most beautiful
locations in the world. I’ll admit I was
a tiny bit concerned that the Cinque Terre tourism website said November was the worst
time of the year to visit, but hey, I figured we’d be in Italy, all of us, together, and
it couldn’t be anything but great. Plus, we'd be near the water, which I adore.
After we got back to the villa Monday night and did our after-hours
lounging/drinking wine, we talked about our next day’s trip to Cinque
Terre. All of the weather reports looked
ominous, and as we chatted, we thought about having a Plan B, just in
case. The concierge at the villa
suggested Volterra and/or San Gimignano.
Even though I didn’t bring any of my early research docs with me, we
thought winging it could be fun, too, if we had to.
When we woke up Tuesday morning, the weather reports for
Cinque Terre continued to look ominous, so we opted to improvise with Plan
B. And Plan B was going to Volterra and
San Gimignano! Woo hoo! Ancient Roman theater, here we come! And, as always, obviously we must go back: there needs to be another trip someday soon to see Cinque Terre.
Oh, and this was also the morning we finally met the ‘bread man.’ We’d been hearing about the gent who comes to
the villa every morning at 10am to deliver fresh bread, but since we'd been leaving the villa so early, we hadn't been able to enjoy the offerings. Hurrah for finally getting the chance! We left our villa at about 10:02am and the line was pretty long, plus there wasn't much left. Already. We knew the villa was full (our concierge told us the first night), but still! I was able to get a couple of pieces of focaccia and two croissants, for only one euro each. Hoo boy, that was a bargain! That bread was amazing! So soft and creamy and delicious. Plus, the bread man (well, more like bread boy) was adorable. And we had fun chatting with other villa residents while we were in line. We definitely started our day off with happiness.
Off we went to Volterra. It was only about a half hour away, which was great. It's beautiful, taking those drives in that scenery, but we had spent a lot of time in the car already, so a shorter trip was appreciated. We drove around for a bit, looking for a parking garage, which we finally found. When we came up from the garage, there was an amazing view all around us. So of course, we had to stop and take photos. The air was brisk, but not cold, the sun was shining, and gosh was there gorgeousness surrounding us. It was a great way to begin our day in Volterra. I got a lovely sound clip of church bells - I'm going to see if I can attach HERE.
Volterra is a lovely, beautifully-preserved medieval town, filled with beautiful buildings and compelling shops. Alabaster has been mined in Volterra for centuries, so there are a lot of artisan shops throughout the town. I definitely indulged in a bit of alabaster for myself and to give as holiday gifts. The main piazza is big and beautiful, with ancient palazzos on all sides. The visitor information office is also on the main square, so we stopped by and picked up a city map to help us throughout the day, though we mainly meandered through town. We did go to the stunning Duomo and Baptistry, and enjoyed going to all the "panoramic photo" spots around the town. At one point, we thought we could go through a very cool tunnel, with lots of graffiti in it, to get to the other side of town, but it actually took us outside the walls. We went back the way we came. We again misjudged the time and a lot of the shops and restaurants were closed, but we did finally find a cute little sandwich shop that was open - they were actually thrilled to see us. Six people, sitting down to dine! A treat for them! Bar Ghirlandaio had so many different yummy-looking treats, it was hard to decide what to get. I finally decided on my fallback sandwich: a prosciutto mozzarella panini. Yum. And a bottle of Coke, which always tastes so much better in Europe for some reason. One of the ladies who worked in the shop also brought us some tasty potato chips! it was a nice break.
I decided to flex my 5% fluency in Italian (according to the Duolingo app) and ask one of the ladies behind the counter if they could tell us where the Roman Theater was. It was pretty easy to find, so it was easy for me to understand, thankfully. It was almost literally around the corner from the restaurant - boom! Suddenly, you're looking at the most incredible ancient theater, built right into a side of the mountain the town is built on. It's amazing. I really couldn't take enough photos, from every angle. Although the signs and the guidebooks said the site should've been open, we couldn't get in. There exists somewhere a photo of our merry band looking VERY disappointed. But I'm so glad I got to see the theater, at least from a distance.
After seeing the theater, we did a little more shopping, then went back to the parking garage so we could get to the second town of the day, San Gimignano. Happily, it was also a quick and easy drive from Volterra. OK, the parking lot may have had a REALLY tight turn, but other than that, no issues.
San Gimignano is one of the few remaining towns that still has towers, built mainly in the 12th century to protect them from invasions. Originally, there were 72 towers, now there are only fourteen. But they are all glorious and make walking through the town a treat. We took more and more photos as the sun started to set. We did some shopping (and my gorgeous gal pals bought me the most amazing handbag in the world! I love it [and them] so much!). One of our intrepid party thought it would be a good idea to head into the visitor's information center to see what restaurants were open for the winter season. The gal in the office just wasn't having it. The intrepid pal got a list from her, but she wouldn't recommend anything nor would she tell us where the places were. We just kind of puttered around and finally found a restaurant that opened early enough for us to eat - we still weren't quite in the 'eat dinner really late in Italy' frame of mind yet. But La Griglia was a very nice place to eat. At least my dinner was delicious - I got the mushroom risotto, which was incredible. Our servers didn't quite know what to do with us, maybe it was too early for them, too. But, as always, we enjoyed ourselves.
We knew we had an early day ahead, so we didn't linger in town very long after dinner. Of course, it helped that nearly everything was closed as we were leaving. We felt like the only group of people in San Gimignano! Which was kind of a cool feeling. Next up - Florence!
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| "Cemento e Ferro" sculpture by Mario Staccioli |
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| photo credit: Gregg Moore |
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| photo credit: Gregg Moore |
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