Volterra

Before calling it a night, we swung by Volterra which was only about 7 km from our awesome Villa.  Volterra’s name means “land that floats” referring to the clouds that often seem to cut it off from the rest of the world below.  Volterra attracts several “twihard” fans for its Hollywood connection to the Twilight movies.  Part of the second movie New Moon is set in Volterra even though most of it was actually filmed in Montepulciano Italy.  So we didn’t reenact any running through the crowded square past famous fountains to jump into each others arms scenes although some of us really wanted to.  Instead we took the easier route of admiring Volterra’s charm and Estruscan Arch.  As a side note the towns favorite cookie is called “Ossi di Morta (“bones of the dead”), their first disco was named Catacombs, and in the 1970’s a popular Italian TV horror series was set in Volterra.  They seem to have a dark mysterious vibe in their blood!

Volterra is not quite as touristy as San Gimi and Siena and feels more like a real Italian town with “real Italians” living in it, not just surviving on tourism.  The most famous sight is this Etruscan arch below named the “Porta all’ Arco”.  The Estruscans were a civilization that existed in middle Italy before the Romans completely took over.  They were a mostly Greek settlement that has shaped much of the culture in modern day Tuscany.  Volterra was once a key Etruscan trading center.  The three heads that are very eroded date from the first century.  During WWII several citizens had to dig up part of the stones that make up this street and plug the arch to save it from the advancing Germans who were going to blow it up.  Locals claim that this is the only arch left standing from the Etruscans and that the Romans got the idea of using a “keystone” from this civilization.