No Vampires in Volterra

Leafing through our guide book, Tom found a section on the Tuscany town of Volterra, and decided that we would use our last day with our rental car to make a trip out into the country to see the scenic hill-top town. The town has a beautiful view, as well as some Roman ruins that we thought would be an interesting sight.

Conveniently enough, Tom's friends, Ben and Rupinder, were also moving through Italy on a holiday (although on a different timeline and moving in the opposite direction as us). However, our paths overlapped in Florence for two days, and they agreed that they would come on the day trip with us.

As we piled into the car after paying what surely amounts to the most expensive overnight parking bill. EVER. (over $60), we declared that we were heading to Volterra. Rupinder replied-- "the TWILIGHT Volterra?" Yes. For those of you who know how I hate-read all of the Twilight books, it all came rushing back to me. Bella hopping on a plane to Italy, driving recklessly through the Italian countryside in a quest to stop Edward from publicly revealing himself as a sparkly vampire in the sunlit main square in Volterra... Yes, you read correctly. I said SPARKLY VAMPIRE. I told you I hate-read these books, right? They were terrible.

Unfortunately (or fortunately?), the author of the Twlight series has never been to Volterra. There really is no main square with a fountain as she describes in the books.

Anyway, no more talk of Twilight. There are no vampires in Volterra.

The road to Volterra was long and winding, and everyone (except Ben) were feeling car sick when we pulled into a parking garage in the town. We got out, shook it off and took in the sights of the town.

Hilltop town of Volterra.

We ambled through the side streets for a few hours, passing a massive penitentiary plastered with NO PHOTOS signs.

Osage orange.

We saw some very bizarre fruits on the ground. I later googled, "green tree fruit brain", which immediately brought up similar pictures of the fruit. They are commonly referred to as Osage orange. They are not edible, and are actually full of a latex-like substance. They are a little bit bigger than a tennis ball, and they look like little green brains.

From here we continued through the town until we found the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre. Apparently at one point this amphitheatre was used as the town dump. It was later excavated and reclaimed when it was identified as an archeological site. As with many things in the off season, the amphitheatre was closed to visitors, so we took pictures from around the perimeter.

Ruins of a Roman Amphitheatre.

Tom, Ben, Rupinder and I checking out the ruins.

We finished our day trip off with a visit to the local patisserie. My favorite was a flaky pastry filled with a mixture of ricotta cheese. Yum!

Next up, our two days in Florence!