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Volterra, Italy

We took a longing last look out of our shutter framed window taking in the jumbled pastel and blue view and exited with the 9:00 ringing of the clock tower. We wished we had more time to relax and absorb the atmosphere and let the world outside keeping turning but we had the train to catch and breakfast to hunt and gather, so packed like a mule we moved onward up the cobbled lane.

I left Vern guarding the bags at the station and set off at a brisk pace to see my Sicilian pirate for of course “the besta pastries in Italy and the sweetest blood orangea juica”. “Good morning beautiful” was the greeting to which I replied “Bon journo” and then we playfully selected from an amazing array of freshly baked with love (yep I am under the seduction) temptations. Armed with a mozzarella, tomato and pesto bruschetta, a lemon ricotta filled filo angels pastry, another twist with cassata type ricotta, a thin ricotta filled donut the shape of half a circle, and a squeezed while I watched blood orange juice at a discount “just for me”, I strolled dreamily back to my waiting habibi with my treasures.

NOM, NOM! Nomedy NOM full stop. He was right.

Two train changes then a bus from a back door town where we were the only tourista in sight, 6 hours later we stepped out on the hill top town of Volterra, Tuscany. The 1 hr bus ride from Pondetera to Volterra throughout the Tuscan countryside was just beautiful. The countryside is carpeted with spring green, wild flower sprinkled long grass. Smothering some fields is a cerise flower we haven’t seen before which is 30cm high and bushy. Added to that are wild pink and white single bloom roses, large prolific white wisteria, poplar and conifers, grapes, olive trees, streams, brick and tile villa and cottages, and watercolour hill ranges disappearing into the horizon.

Volterra is taller and larger than we thought and we were anxious to explore it as soon as we could as we only had the remainder of our afternoon to do so before our next stop; Orvieto in Umbria. We also needed to work out how we were getting there as this was probably the most difficult and vague transfer my pre trip research indicated. Strangely enough there was no ticket office by the bus station so we found the tourist office in the main square who were incredibly helpful. They directed us across the square where we got tickets for Orvieto and then back to the information centre to get a taxi booked for bag drop at our Albergio (Villa with about 8 rooms).

Now here is another odd one, there is a taxi stand at the bus station, but no taxis. They have numbers to call at info center but they are not really taxis, but car rental places that SOMETIMES have drivers! Ok confused now and well none of the 4 numbers had anything available but the lovely young lady rung the Villa and they sent a car to pick us up within 5 minutes at the square.

Our driver was Grandma in a little Ford Fiesta with no words of English but big smiles. She squeezed us in and squished our bags in the hatch and preceded down the hill as an incarnation of Possum Bourne. I would like to note that I did not have a seatbelt in the back and had visions of a very short 50th year.

Checked in went smoothly and we briefly marvelled at the views of the Tuscan countryside before google mapping ourselves with the town which was approximately 2.2km as the crow flies. Our plan was to wait for the 5pm bus to town at the bus stop just outside the gate. It was a bit late but no worries, Gran was taking granddaughter for a music lesson and motioned us to hop in. Oh no here we go again, where you have hills here, you have windy narrow steep roads that are often one lane around corners with nice big drops on one side. Lovely.

Graci’s (thanks) and Prago (welcome) smiles and waves we hit the cobbles running. First stop an alabaster shop to look admiringly at the art works they are known for here. Got a little multi coloured stone bracelet, my first purchase on holiday and found our way through the ancient stone town to the Roman Theatre ruins on the other side. Volterra is also known for its Etruscan roots and there was a lovely bling shop with replica bracelets etc in silver and gold but prices were ridiculous. I satisfied myself with photographing the architecture as a memento instead.

We found a lovely church that has its roots going back nearly 2 thousand years. From the outside it just looked like another building as they are joined together in blocks, wall to wall. It was built on the site of St. Linus’ birth home (no longer there). St. Linus was the first Tuscan Pope after the apostle Peter and is mentioned at the end of the second epistle of Paul to Timothy. The actual church we saw dates back to 1513. I really enjoyed it in comparison to some of the grander churches we have seen probably because it was simple and had no relics. It was lovely to stand there and contemplate whilst coloured light from the stained glass fell in a kaleidoscope on the pulpit in the late evening sun. Note the photo of the art on the ceilings done by a Florentine artist in the 1500’s.

We left there and stopped to read our map to decide where to go to next and an old sprightly nun came by and asked us in an American accent if we needed help. She was tiny and cute in her blue calf length habit, about as short as great Omi and similar in looks with such kind bright periwinkle blue eyes. We chatted for a little while and then whilst I took some architecture pictures she toddled Vernon off up the hill to give him some markers. I was a little worried as it took him quite some time to reappear and I wondered if he had ended up in a church mass somewhere…..

After more just wandering and soaking up the atmosphere we dined at a popular place recommended by our Vila owner. We shared an antipasto platter which included a pot of runny honey for the pecorino … And then I had ‘milk pasta ravioli with lobster, asparagus and cream and Vern had Carbonara which was nice but not as good as I make or we have had in Aussie. It had no cream, a fair bit of olive oil in the bottom of the bowl and little bits of egg which I would say we’re overlooked. Hmmm nonetheless it was tasty and it filled the spot. We were quite tired as it takes a lot of care and energyit negotiating *********e ground which is uneven and those slopes and sun (tough life on the road exploring).

It was dark when we finished dinner so knowing that finding a taxi was highly unlikely we had no choice but to walk home. We flipped open the ipad and set off with our goggle map in reverse following ourselves via GPS. It started off ok with a path and lit streets but soon the path disappeared and we were on that narrow road with no sides to walk on and only star light. At times it got a bit hair raising as those corners are plain suicidal being one lane and the traffic was still steady. It got to a point where it seemed too risky to continue on the edge of the one lane windy road that we chose a dark side path which ended up a short cut, well long short cut – but at least it had no traffic for a bit until we popped out on the road again. All this was done with the ipad lighting our way plus at times my mobile phone torch.

If a car came on this back bit of road we ducked into some shrub! When we finally got to where the GPS said was home, it was actually the property next door (it had mapped our room at the back). Problem, no clear path between this property and our property. Instead there was a big windy road again. We really didn’t want to go out country road walking again so snuck around and found some steps and a back way to cut up the hill and accommodations in-between. We arrived home at 11pm after an 80 minute romantic NOT walk through the Tuscan hills countryside.

I was so pleased to finally get home, whilst it may seem adventurous looking back it was actually quite scary and stressful – there were serious risks involved in walking around in the dark and at times we felt quite vulnerable. Given it was only 2.2km or a 5 minute car
drive, the fact that it took us 80 minutes shows how far we had gone off track to avoid getting run over. I now also know that they have snakes in Italy, thankfully I didn’t know that when I was ducking in the shrubs. A memorable birthday for sure:-)

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