speaking of signs, italians must be really good at processing information. try picking out where to go in a roundabout with 15 destinations pointed at 9, 12 and 3 o’clock while cars tailgate you.
the drive to volterra from the fi-si (firenze-siena) highway turned out to be really lovely, with rolling fields in the lushest shade of green yet, with the occasional carpet of yellow inundating the green.
torture must be big business. there was another heavily advertised museum in volterra. thankfully, that was not all volterra had to offer. the fact that there were much fewer tourists was already a definite improvement over san gimignano. we checked out the pisan-style duomo with its ‘coffered renaissance ceiling’ as well as the roman theatre. drove out for a view of le balze, volterra’s ‘famous eroded cliffs,’ a little frustrating as the one spot we found was blocked by trees. some great views from the road, but nowhere to stop. the one attempt to do some etruscan-era sightseeing was aborted after we reached the site of the tombs. didn’t seem like we would get much out of it and besides, the cctv views behind the ticket sellers were not too exciting.
also liked that there were lots of old folks out and about in their sunday best and that we stumbled across an unexpected mini-festival. we should have been tipped off by the red cross and police presence but it wasn’t till the music started up that we realized what was going on. unusually for us, we stayed on for dinner, which offered a tiny glimpse of village life. which seemed to consist of hanging out on the corner that we overlooked from our table at vecchia osteria dei poeti. had the volterran (vegetable) soup, which was hearty and tasty, and grilled prawns with rucola and cherry tomatoes, good in itself and complemented the soup nicely. other starters were tomatoes and mozzarella, prosciutto and melon. A and E both had pappardelle with cinghiale. A also tried the sweet and sour cinghiale. no, it didn’t taste like sweet and sour pork. shared a bottle of red. 102 total. dinner was followed by gelato at il contro. preferred yoghurt with berries to melon. second helping of gelato in volterra. earlier version was unusual in having bits of strawberry and cocoa bean in the ice-cream.
thinking that this whole no-sightseeing-before-lunch itineraries would definitely be in demand.
played italy scrabble, with extra points for italy-related words, as arbitrated by E. 2 were formed: tower, which we climbed lots of, and pope. because he wore red prada red shoes which was mentioned in the car at some point.