Heading to Vetulonia

 

Ciao!

Up this morning to a beautiful and sunny day, with just a hint of haze in the valley below.

Breakfast again at 8 am and this time we hung out a bit longer at the hotel, realizing that most archaeological museums or indeed sites, don’t open very year.  Out about 9:15 am and heading to Vetulonia.

Ancient Vetulonia ... with poppies!

Etruscan road and houses

They did do nice walls!

Now that's a jar!

And they did do some nice things in gold ...

Ancient tomb remains

View into the valley

Ancient tomb with long entrance

Reconstructed central beam

Etruscan ceiling of tomb

Yet another tomb!

At the door of ancient tomb

Fresco in the Cathedral in Massa

Baptism font in Cathedral

Veggie appetizer!

R's pici

My ravioli

Beautiful sunset!

Vetulonia was one of the biggest Etruscan cities in existence, before it was taken over/absorbed by Rome.  But, what was interesting is that it virtually disappeared for a very long period of time.  Then, in the late 1800’s, a local doctor who was very interested in the Etruscans, set out to look for it.  Rather in the style of the amateur archaeologist Schlieman finding Troy based on his readings of ancient texts, Dr. Falchi gathered all of his clues together and set out in the Tuscan Maremma to find it.  And he did!  

What remains of Vetulonia include a small residential section, a great museum named after the finder, as well as several excavated and open tombs in the countryside.  All in all, a very interesting place to visit.

We first came across the remains of the residential area as we drove up the hill toward town.  Vetulonia, in Etruscan times, faced the town of Roselle (where we were yesterday in the rain) across the plain, and where the city of Grosseto now is, was a large salt water lake between the two cities.  This promoted competition between the two places, but also provided for fairly easy transport between them.  Apparently Vetulonia specialized in gold!  (Always a fun thing!)

It is very interesting to look at ruins and be able to identify what is Roman construction and what is the original Etruscan.  (My belief is that the Romans did a better job with laying their rocks down for smoother roads, but the Etruscans did great primary building blocks.)

From the ruins, we next headed into town and right to the museum.  And, unlike most museums in the area, everything was free, which was nice. In this case, it looks like there is a major overhaul happening – lots of sawing and pounding, but the majority of the work was going on around the two floors on which the exhibits were displayed, and we were able to walk around and spend as much time as we wanted looking at things.  They did indeed have a fair amount of gold on display.  It was from one of the tombs in the countryside that my favorite artifact of yesterday came – the lady in two pieces.

From the museum, we then headed along the “tombe trail” if I may so call it, and there were several excellent examples of tholos tombs.  The first one we stopped at was actually two floors high, with a huge supporting column inside.  From what we can make out, the corbelled roof was missing stones from the very top, but it has been closed up and redone beautifully.  Very impressive tomb!  The second tomb had a very long tholos entrance with several side rooms facing each other.  It also had the huge central column, but this was actually rebuilt, and the stones did not look like the originals.  Again, the top of the tomb had been repaired and was closed off from the outside.  

The final tomb that we wanted to see (Diavolo I) turns out to have been moved to the Florence Etruscan museum, which means we will have to get there on a Saturday morning, as that is the only time in which it is open.  Oh well, shouldn’t be more than thousands of people wanting to head into Florence on a Saturday morning!  We will definitely have to see what times train start from Pisa!

After this, we decided to take a leisurely drive back to Massa Marittima, as I definitely want to get some photos of the Duomo here, and it closes about 6 in the evening.  We did manage nice naps on a spectacular afternoon!  More later!

m

xxx

Back from my jaunt up the hill to visit the Duomo on this lovely afternoon!  (For the record, I did ask Robert if he wanted to come with me, but he declined. His statement basically was that he will walk up that hill for food, but nothing less … and he doesn’t like gelato!! Oh well!)  It is a cathedral, and Mother Teresa spoke to the towns people in 1991.  Really lazy afternoon in town, although something is happening at the church, as people are putting large glass candleholders on the steps up to the church (Ascension Thursday, 40 days after Easter).  It will be interesting to see if something special happens there tonight, when we are there.  We are still deciding where to go to dinner, and R is seriously thinking about the place we went the first night and had such great food.  As far as I’m concerned, I could have the entire veggie appetizer myself, as it was wonderful … and a glass of wine, of course!  So … more later when we have returned from dinner!

Back from dinner!  Everything is getting ready for the celebration for the Ascension and the start of Pentecost.  Candles everywhere, waiting to be lit.

We went to Prosciutto e Pepone again, and yet again had a fabulous meal!  Rand I shared their vegetarian starter, and it was even better than the first time.  Then, I had their ravioli stuffed with ricotta and sage and R had their Pici (a thick, noodle pasta) with cheese and black pepper sauce.  He won.  His pici was fabulous.  Hard to describe, but delicious!  We had a white wine of the region along with it – and will be sorry to leave Massa tomorrow.  We will be heading to Montepulciano and an apartment for a week!  So! More tomorrow!

m

xxx