Not many photos from today, so not too many memories jogged. We got up and had a quick walk around town to look for the market. It’s usually in the main piazza, and the cathedral piazza beside it – and thought it was, as it was still July, but it wasn’t there.
Well if it wasn’t around there, it must be in the main residents’ carpark (the only one we can’t use, sadly – beside the Roman ruins)… and bingo – there it was!
It was probably only about two-thirds the size of the usual market, most likely due to Covid. We bought fresh veg for dinners for a bit less than you normally would – 0km food rules. Ok, the market has to travel more than 0km, but you know what I mean!
We also went into the local electrical store to see if we could find a decent air-conditioning unit, as Volterra is anything from 30-38 during daylight hours in July/August. The shop had one, but the people manning the store couldn’t tell us a damn thing about it, sadly. It even took them a good 5 minutes to find out the price (nearly €500). When I pointed out the unit uses gas, they said it didn’t… until I pointed it out on the box. They were surprised! I then asked them if they stocked the gas… they said no… so we left empty-handed. It would have been murder to get it up the stairs anyway.
After lunch (not a clue what we had!), we had to go into Pontadera to look for monitors for work. We both work off dual-screen setups and the first couple of days were tortuous just working off the small laptop screen. We also wanted to see if we could find air conditioning units there too. We popped into Comet (remember them?) and grabbed a couple of 24″ widescreen monitors for €100 apiece… not too shabby.
They had air-conditioning units too, but they were still very pricey, and without having consulted someone to see what kind of units we’d need to cool the sitting room and the master bedroom, we chickened out. Instead, we picked up a couple of much cheaper fan units, which use water to cool you down even further. They were also a good bit lighter and easier to carry, so we bought two!
When we got back to Volterra, we did something for very first time: we parked in the underground carpark at the viewpoint, so we could comfortably bring our loot back. I took both fans in the one trip – because that’s what blokes do – heaven forbid you fetch groceries from the car more than once! These units quickly became our new best friends:
And the monitors worked a treat too!
(Yes, that’s a photo of Niamh on my mousemat!). That mini-fan also came in super-handy from time to time.
I wish I could tell you what the heck we did for food all day. I *think* we got chicken and deep fried fritto misto di verdure (sounds posh, is actually battered, deep fried veggies). The only bit of evidence I have from the latter part of the day is this nice photo from our terrace.
Our Man In Volterra 