If it’s Monday, it must be Volterra!

Ciao!

Up this morning about 6 am and showered and out of the house around 8 am.  Breakfast consisted of croissants and coffee (R) and croissants and sparkling water for me. (We have yet to figure out why hot chocolate is so hard to find here!)  Really beautiful morning, with the forecast of a sunny day.  We thought we would head to Volterra as their Etruscan Museum reputedly contains 600 sarcophagi!  [Don’t be frightened!  I was given clear instruction to notphotograph any sarcophagi today. – R] Who can resist that, right?  So, out on to the roads for the hour and 18 minute drive.  The only difficulty is that while I was reading our Etruscan Places book, I found another site and museum that we are most likely going to have to visit in Cecina, the port city for Volterra. 

Beautiful avenue of cypress

View from the top of Volterra

Looking down on the Etruscan gate

Very old city!

Roman Amphitheater

Stage part of the theatre

In Museum - decorated ax blade

Golden diadems

A very thin bronze!

R's salad lunch

Looking through to Etruscan wall

Storage silo through the floor!

Our wonderful Chicken teriyaki

And AMAZING fried rice!

R's sushi starter of tuna roll

Our tempura of shrimp and veggies!

(When I did my original research, over the past year or so, I put so many pointer stickies on our Italian Road Atlas (Central) that Robert complained that it was hard to handle!  What we have discovered is that there is truly a lot to learn, see and explore about the Etruscans, and it will definitely have to involve another visit. There is no possible way everything can be seen and done on one trip, even if that trip is a month long!)  

We have always approached Volterra (which defines a hilltop town) from the east.  This time, we came from the northwest, and it was quite a difference; a much nicer drive. We climbed up the mountain slowly, and were able to find a prime parking space in their parking garage #1, literally right at the entrance.  Town started just around the corner and right up the hill.  (It really is always UP when in a hilltop city; Robert was right!)  We stopped for a few minutes to reconnoiter at a café.  This time I did get my hot chocolate and R had Café Americano, and I also included a bit of gelato for dessert.  

Lots of people in town, but not all tourists.  It was easy to see that life in Volterra proceeds around any and all tourist attractions.  (My personal favorite:  The Torture Museum!  Doesn’t that sound like a fun place to visit?!)  Our first stop was a viewing of the Roman amphitheatre which is on the ground level, but with a beautiful unrestricted view from Volterra’s walls. Apparently, the ancient population was once estimated to be only about 2,000 people, because that was the size that could be accommodated in the amphitheatre.  However, recently in new excavations, a much larger theatre was discovered outside the walls, and is still being excavated, indicating that there were many more people here in ancient times.  Then headed to the museum.  

We have visited Volterra many times in the past, and have also visited the Etruscan Museum, but this time we were looking for one sarcophagus in particular.  It is a sarcophagus featuring a husband and wife, quite literally staring at each other. We figured it would be easy to find. Right…Have I mentioned the special Etruscan exhibition going on right now in Karlsruhe, Germany?  If I haven’t, I will now.  It seems that many, many of the museums we have been visiting have been sending one or two of their choicest pieces to Karlsruhe.  For the most part, it hasn’t been a problem, but as we traversed three floors (and the back garden) looking for this sarcophagus, we just couldn’t find it.  Which caused me to remark: “It’s probably in Karlsruhe!”  So, Robert asked one of the guards where to find this particular piece, and guess what?  It’s in GERMANYat the moment!  UGHHHHHHHHH… Oh well, as Robert says, one more reason to return to Volterra in the future!  But still…

This is the first time I remember the museum having a back garden, although I’m sure it has always been there.  This place has so many sarcophagi that they are also all over the garden, along with a few other interesting pieces.  Lovely place to sit!

After the museum, we decided it was time for lunch, and we found a very interesting place to eat it! It advertises on boards out front that they do “real” Slow Food (do you know about the Slow Food movement?) in a buffet setting, for which you pay by the weight for what you take.  Robert has been looking for a real salad bar since we left Tucson … could this be it? Well, it certainly wasn’t Sweet Tomatoes or Souplantation, but the concept definitely worked.  They had lettuce and other veggies and grains to put on a salad, as well as two vegan pizzas on farro dough and several different composed salads – potato and pasta.  It was actually excellent, I am happy to report!  The only difficulty I had was that the slice of farro pizza I took was cold, and that’s how they serve it.  Where is a microwave when I need it most?  Robert, who likes his pizza cold, was fine!  The floor of the restaurant was thick glass to allow viewing of the stones beneath.  Robert asked if it was a deposit of alabaster (a favorite stone of the Etruscans in this area) and was told, “No, these are part of the Etruscan city wall that was excavated in 2000 and 2001.”  So, here we were, eating lunch on top of a structure from 2500 years ago!

After lunch, we realized that the skies had become very hazy, and in fact have discovered since we got back to Pisa that rain has popped up in the forecast for tonight.  Who knew? Took a different way back to Pisa, and again, enjoyed the lovely ride in the country.  Do I have to say again how wonderful Tuscany SMELLS?  It’s unreal!

Got back to the apartment about 2:30 pm and I settled down for a nice nap.  Felt SO good!  At that point, Yuri, our landlady’s grandson arrived with a new piece for the shower, and in quite literally seconds, our shower was fixed!  YEAH!  Robert is SOhappy, which is always nice!

We are thinking about a Japanese restaurant for dinner tonight, so we’ll see how that goes!

More later!

m

xxx

Just back from Nishiki Koi restaurant, and a fabulous dinner!  We drove, as we figured that we could find parking, and it really wasn’t a problem.  Got there about 7:15 pm and were the first people there; nice table in the back. Turns out, in addition to their Italian menu, they also have one in English, which was very helpful to say the least.  We started with an order of tuna roll (for Robert) and shrimp and vegetable tempura to share.  It was wonderful.  Then for dinner, we both ordered the same thing – Chicken teriyaki with vegetable fried rice.  We both loved it so much that we’re going back on Wednesday night, me for Sukiyaki and I’m not sure what Robert is planning, but he says he knows what he wants already.  (I think this was my third time for chicken since we’ve been gone, and this was definitely Robert’s first time.)  Restaurant really filled up, and as the sushi chef and the waiters were Japanese, we figured we had struck gold!  Looking forward to Wednesday night’s dinner!

Tomorrow there will be no blog posting, as we are taking the train from Pisa to Florence to Torino to go to their newly revamped Egyptian museum.  We were there many years ago, and it was excellent, but very, very much out of date.  They had these huge wooden framed glass display walls that were very old-fashioned then – totally out of date now.  We have read that the redone museum is exceptional, so we are stepping out of Etruscan mode for the day to see how it looks.  We are leaving something like 7 am in the morning and not getting back from Torino until 10 pm tomorrow night.  Hence, I’ll be going to bed; will make it up on Wednesday morning!

Lots of love,

m

xxx