Tag: food

2023)

Tuesday, 6th June
We promised a day on the beach to our water-friendly pal. She had been with us before back in 2019 to experience Marina di Cecina. It’s a strange, gritty strand and if I recall correctly there is a sudden dip only a few feet into the waves, which would make hydrophobes like myself too nervous. I didn’t get in that day. The benefit of Marina di Cecina, however, is that you have tons of amenities all along the strand – not just the beach clubs, but other restaurants, bars and shops a block inland.

This time we were going to Castiglione della Pescaia. This is a little town we have already visited, which is one of the few places with an old-town feel, but is also on the coast. We’d be using a Lido (beach club) for the first time ever. I booked it for us online. I’d heard that the beach was better – the sand golden. The Lido would have amenities, but it’s about a 10 or so minute walk into town from our Lido of choice (Bagno Perla) into town for a better choice of restaurant. Fortunately, we found the food at the Lido more than adequate! If there’s a downside for us, it’s that the town is about 90-100 minutes drive away. Additionally, the motorway leading from Cecina to Follonica – a good part of the trip – is not in good condition. It’s slowly being repaired, but because it’s not a tolled road, it’s not a top priority to those holding the purse strings.

From Follonica onwards, the journey is pleasant enough. Anyway, we got to the Lido, got ourselves ready and hit the beach. I nearly had my entire body on display, which is incredibly rare. I am rather pale. Not only that, I actually got in the water… up to my chest only – I have zero confidence in water unless both legs are planted firmly on sabbia ferma.

The sand may look a little dirty, but it’s still smooth and pebble-free. The sand bank also goes out 20-30 meters which is nifty. We splashed about a bit, and then took lunch at the Lido’s restaurant.

After some grub and a beer, we did the unthinkable in Italy: headed immediately back to the water. Many an Italian Mama (and if I recall correctly, many an Irish Mammy), would advise never to re-enter water after having just eaten – best to wait an hour or two. Pish and tish – in we went!

When we’d had enough, we headed into town to work up an appetite. We took our friend up to the old town of Castiglione, which is essentially converted walled fortress. It’s rather hilly, but pretty and offers some amazing views of the bay.

Ok, after walking up and down (mostly up, somehow), we had another hunger upon us. We were told by another pal that we should try burger bar Harbor Crew, so that’s just what we did. First, we hit a hotel bar just across the street. It was a local place, no frills. We yummied some light snacks and our spritzes and as soon as 18:30 struck, ran across the road to snaffle some burger. Unfortunately, this place has closed down since, because he has actually moved to Florence. Wah! The burgers are fantastic, it has to be said. I’ve been there a couple of times since (while it was in Castiglione). I think we’ll head over to Florence to re-partake later this year.

As soon as we were done there, we left for home. Part of the route home we took off the motorway, just for the sake of change.

Wednesday, 7th June
The rest of the blog is a further testament to food. We spent the next day in Volterra, and our friend spent the morning shopping and exploring again, while we lazed about in the apartment. I didn’t even go out for a walk! We met up for a single course lunch in the touristy Ristorante Etruria.

I took this shot while we both got money from the ATM in the northeast corner of the main piazza

Hmmm… maybe I had too much to eat at lunch, given that we were going to head out to eat again at our favourite chef’s place: BIS, in low-key foodie town Colle di Val d’Elsa. Alessandro used to be head chef in Del Duca in Volterra, before the managership of that restaurant changed. His cooking – from breads to desserts and everything in between is fantastic, and we always get a warm reception when he sees us. However, this time would be our first time in this new eatery.

Colle di Val d’Elsa is a large town, with a historic centre set on a knife-ridge, between Volterra and Siena. It has a nice new town as well, and one of the biggest markets I’ve ever seen every Friday.

We drove to Colle, having to pause at a stop-go system tantalisingly close to Ristorante Arnolfo, BIS’ 2-Michelin-starred parent restaurant. We haven’t eaten there yet, but look forward to doing so. We wound our way to a car park just outside the walls of the old town, and took a couple of snaps.

We had arrived too early (my fault) and so had a little walk about the old town with our friend – only as far as the bridge, though – then it was time to enter the restaurant. We were shown to our table by the very friendly staff. We saw there was a burgeoning terrace outside, with a fab-looking view:

But enough of that – it was time for food. BIS is a contemporary fine-dining restaurant, and you can have some variants on pasta meat-based dishes, but you there is also an extensive ‘nibbles’ section, which we ordered from.

The food was absolutely delicious and the portion sizes perfect. When we were on our way out, a waiter caught us and asked us if we wanted to say hello to Alessandro. So, we did! The kitchen was immaculate, and he was warm and welcoming, but there were so many dishes being worked upon, so we didn’t want to outstay our welcome. He was a busy man!

After that, we headed home, had a drink and then went to our beds! Thanks for reading this – please let me know what you think!

Palazzo Viti and Etruscan Tombs in the Rain (05/06/2023)

We picked up a friend who’d be staying with us for a few days from Pisa Airport. This was a detail I had unfortunately left out in the last blog. I honestly had forgotten, and the photos I took gave me absolutely no clue. I strongly suspect it was in the late afternoon, after we had eaten in Porgi l’Altra Pancia. We must have picked her up, and then I spared her my documenting every moment of life in Italy, and we just spent a chill evening at home. In fact, now that I have some recollection – she was quite tired and not up for doing much, so we chilled along with her.

The reason why I am now drawing this conclusion is that the day I’m now blogging begins with a walk to the Etruscan tombs north of Volterra. There’s simply no way we would have picked someone up that early in Pisa and then gone on a walk. We definitely made this trip in the early morning, in an effort to avoid overheating ourselves on the very uphill walk back.

So that’s what we did. I had been there a couple of times before, but not with anyone – so this would be a bit of fun. Our friend had recently signed on for a Celtic history course, and while the Etruscans weren’t Celts exactly, her interest in the ancient was piqued enough to join me. What sealed the deal was a chance at a distant sneak preview of the archaeological dig site of a Roman Amphitheatre just opposite the town’s modern cemetery. The cemetery itself is also worth a visit.

We had a few peeps of the of the amphitheatre from above and near eye-level and wished that the digsite would open soon for tours! We continued down the road towards the tombs, passing fully by the cemetery and through Porta Diana – the Etruscan gateway which is missing its arch, and finally around the sharp bend which led outside the town boundary. There was a new sign on the corner which seemed to point into someone’s private field, labelled “Volterra Urban Trekking”. We didn’t take that, but continued down the road towards the tombs – shooting the lovely countryside on the way.

When we got to our destination, I had planned on taking her into both tombs, but the path to one of them was horribly overgrown, and we gave it a skip, given our bare arms. Last year, it had recently been strimmed (weed-whacked), but no such luck this year. So, we went to the other one, had a look about and a read of the information on a the small nearby sign.

You still wouldn’t want to be too claustrophobic

It was fun and interesting and is to be recommended – but a word of warning here about the walk back to town, which is entirely uphill for a couple of kilometers, if your destination in Volterra is the main piazza. We took pics of the town at a distance and finally poor Porta Diana, which so few visitors ever see. Shame – the whole area is quite lovely.

We huffed and puffed our way back (especially me), and chilled for the rest of the morning. Then lunchtime came. Our friend had nipped out earlier to do a little touring and bag-shopping, so to whet our appetite we had small walk about, looking for a decent place to eat for just ourselves. Some of the following shots are wonderfully dramatic, but indicative of what was to follow!

We hit Osteria Fornelli again and I made a pig of myself by having two courses: zuppa alla Volterrana and pici cacio e pepe (with truffle). Niamh had penne alla pomarola. Thankfully, the cacio e pepe wasn’t as rich and cloying as last time and it was so yum.

After lunch, we had a peep out over the Val di Cecina. Piazzetta Fornelli has one of the best 180 degree views of the valley below – and on a clear day you can make out Sardinia. Today, however, the more we looked on, the closer rain clouds moved towards the town. We’d have to find our friend, and fast!

We gave her a call, and agreed we’d go to Palazzo Viti. She’d been here before and bought a Volterra Card, but because Palazzo Viti is privately owned, it wasn’t covered (the card is great value otherwise!). The Palazzo, which is only open seasonally, was begun to be built towards the end of the 1600’s and is still owned by the Viti family today! The family made a lot of their wealth in the alabaster trade, and the rooms convey the level of prominence of the family. If you’re here in-season, and are fascinated by stately homes and palaces, it’s a must-visit! We met our friend, who was carrying some shopping bags, and went in.

I would be saying hello to these two guys again later on after our tour.

It’s so well-kept and beautiful! We continued through the rooms.

About halfway through the tour, we heard the heavens open. And it hadn’t stopped by the time we’d finished our tour of the house. Once again, it was absolutely pelting rain in Volterra. We waited in the hallway entrance for 10-15 minutes, waiting for the torrents to cease. I tried to strike up a couple of conversations, with varying degrees of success.

The rain didn’t stop, but abated enough for us to make a run for it to our apartment entrance. We got moderately wet, as the rain was falling vertically. Otherwise, we might have been able to creep beside buildings to avoid the drops. Anyway, none of us actually died, so all was well.

We chilled until the evening, went for an aperitivo in L’Incontro and, strangely, went to Don Beta for dinner. I say ‘strangely’, as Don Beta is one of those types of restaurants we would avoid elsewhere – a touristic one, where the menu is vast. On the plus side, if you can’t decide whether you want pasta or pizza, then Don Beta is one of the places to go if are with a group who want a mix of these things. You’ll find something for everyone here. There are times that we are looking for something light, and I love the veg soup here, and it is now also the only place I know in town that does a simple spaghetti all’aglio olio and peperoncino (garlic, oil, chilli). And that’s just what I had!

I gave Campari spritzes a go for a while

I pick my days to go there, but I always enjoy what I order and the service is really fast and friendly.

I was well and truly stuffed by this point and so it was just time to go back to the apartment. I took one more final shot from our Terrace, then it was wine and bed (yes, in that order!).

Thanks for getting all the way to the end of this blog or our busy day. Let me know what you think, or if you have any questions about life in this area of Tuscany.

Tugs-of-War and Even More Rain (02/06-04/06/2023)

We were due to pick up a friend who’d be staying a a few days with us. This was also the weekend that we discovered that Tuscany had developed some sort of weird monsoon weather front. For weeks, it would be nice in the morning, but come 11 or 12 dark clouds would gather and then it would pour rain for a while, then spatter until the early evening. We’d not seen such a prolonged weather front like in Tuscany like it before.

Friday, 2nd of June
Well, we still had one working day to see off before our 2-week holiday kicked-in. I had too much cheese for breakfast – pecorino aged under walnut leaves, with black-truffle infused honey. For lunch I had yummmy tagliatelle with ragu in Porgi L’Altra Pancia – alone! Niamh had lunch back in the apartment.

However, after work I had a wee glass of Santa Lucia’s finest to start off the holiday with a bang, and said goodbye to this precipitous drop from my ‘office’ window.

So vanilla-y! Note the rain on the window.

Earlier in the day during work, I had to shut the window firmly, because the sbandieratori (flag jugglers) and their accompanying band marched through the street directly outside. The window does a fab job of muffling noise, which is a good thing, as people stay up late during the summer months outside. Anyway, that march usually means something is on, and indeed it was. Every year the various contrade (neighbourhoods) compete in a couple of palii (plural of palio). In Siena, they race horses at breakneck speed around the main square. In Volterra, we have tugs-of-war in June and, believe it or not, race wheels of cheese through an obstacle course in October.

Today, it was tug-of-war day! Teams of mixed genders from all the contrade, which includes villages within the comune of Volterra. The event was delayed by the main weather feature this year: torrential rain. After a while, however, the competition-runners thought the piazza dry enough to kick off proceedings. In my humble opinion, and I would guess the opinion of the first few teams who were placed at on the southern side of the square, it was still too wet. Anyway, they had to go ahead, and arrange their teams on either side of the – I wish I knew what it was called in Italian – but it for all the world looks like the wooden base of some medieval siege engine. It was their job to tug the base over the line on their side. If both sides failed to do this, it would be in the hands of the judges as to who made most gains during that contest.

The first teams lined up, and you could see that half of the southern team had feet on wet flagstones. The competition was swift and decisive and went to the northern team. The protestations about wet ground fell on deaf ears and the competition continued. The group did begin to dry up pretty rapidly.

In the end, the victors were Villamagna – a town across a part of the Val d’Era surrounded by spectacular views. You can find the video of our trip to Vada during the previous weekend, and the palio!

After we’d watched the planting of the winning contrade‘s flag in the, er, wooden thing, and have the winning team run a couple of the circuits of the piazza, we got up and walked to L’Incontro for a quick aperitivo. Then it was off to get our usual very warm welcome at La Mangiatoia. We both opted for pizzas and beer.

Speck and Mascarpone… ham and mushroom in the background

There’s no pizza without beer, and this year we seemed to favour north Italian beer Først, instead of Moretti. It’s nice and refreshing! Speaking of booze, we then decided to visit Pietro in Antica Velathri Cafe for some spiffy cocktails (and to practice my Italian – he’s very kind like that!).

I think Niamh had a G+T which happily changed colour based on a light in the bottom of a glass holder. I had a lovely mixture made up by Pietro on our previous visit a few months ago: frangelico, grenadine and cointreau. Very yummy indeed.

Saturday, 3rd of June
The next day, we decided to stay in Volterra and check out the marketplace. But first, a wee walk!

The mornings were the best time of day, weather-wise

After washing and re-dressing (thank goodness), we went to the market!

I think the colours of the March market were a little more vivid. What do you think? Town was getting busy and warm, and to counteract this we decided to go on a little jaunt to La Rosa after having a granita (me) and gelato (Niamh). We wanted to see if we could find the supposed new location of La Rosa’s mercato del usato (Italy’s wonderful 2nd hand bric-a-brac markets).

On the way to the car, we spotted a hen party. I thought this rather unusual for Volterra, but I’ve actually seen a couple more since. Volterra, as much as I love it, isn’t exactly party-central. It does get loud in pockets during the summer, but largely it’s quite a quiet place. But everyone’s welcome!

We went to La Rosa, and for the life of us couldn’t find the new location. The old location was firmly shut up and there was no sign of life. Google was pointing us towards the back of a warehousey-place on the opposite side of the road – and we drove around it – but no joy.

We then went into one of those ‘Chinese’ stores, which seem to be a variant on ‘pound’ or ‘dollar’ stores you’ll find elsewhere. If in Ireland, think ‘Eurosaver’ or ‘Mr. Price’. Anyway, we did have some stuff to pick up for the house… cleaning implements and sprays. We found what we needed, and then also spotted a sun-reflecting screen for a car. It’s the kind of thing you unfold against the windscreen to reflect the sun and keep your parked car relatively cool. It was only a fiver, so it went in our basket.

On checking out, we asked where the 2nd hand market was. One man in the queue behind us said it was gone, but that there was one in Capannoli – which we knew about. The Chinese lady at the register thought it was still about and maybe on the block next to her’s. We thanked everyone, and wandered out – without the sun reflector. We didn’t realise this until days later, hilariously. We had a search for the second hand market around the block suggested, but to no avail. Oh well.

It was well within the lunch hour, and not spotting what we wanted nearby, we had a look at Google maps in the car, and spotted a well-reviewed place between La Sterza and Lajatico: La Valatta – which is down in Google maps primarily as a hotel/agriturismo – and it is also just exactly that. No sooner had we selected the place and begun to leave La Rosa, it began to absolutely pelt rain. Utterly torrential, with accompanying sound and light show.

The rain didn’t let up, and when we pulled into La Valetta’s carpark, we had a 30-40 meter dash to the restaurant in the lashings of rain. We survived the run (that’s cardio for the weekend!), and walked into a completely empty restaurant. Uh-oh. I located a lone waiter and pounced, asking him if the restaurant was, in fact, open. He had to check with a colleague before confirming. We were seated and sighed in relief.

More people came in as we ate, so we weren’t entirely on our own. I have a bad habit of wanting to try a few courses in restaurants I’m eating in for the first time. So yeah, we ended up having three courses. The food here was really good, but I remember the meats being perhaps a little more gamey than you usually find in touristic towns.

I think this was beef tongue, but I am not sure

By the time we rolled out of the place, the sun had come out (sort of), and we got a good look at the place from the outside.

We drove home via Lajatico, which brought us via a pretty route and that was pretty much all she wrote for that day, except that I gave our new sexy chair a go that evening.

Sunday, 4th of June
I have to shamefacedly admit that I remember precious little about this day. There’s no doubt we had a lazy one, and ate kind of light too, with Porgi l’Altra Pancia getting our love again.

I hope you enjoyed the read – let me know what you think!

A Week of Working (29/05-01/06/2023)

This will be a blog of many photos but very few words.

We worked this week, and when that happens nothing terribly exciting or noteworthy tends to happen. I get up, I go for a walk, I shower/change, then work. In the middle of the morning I get a gelato, work, lunch, more work, quit. I think you get the picture. There is something nonetheless wonderful about working away. The weather is usually better, the food is miles better. Gelato. After work, it’s aperitivo time, maybe meet and dine out with a friend or two.

So, with this in mind, I present to you our working week, mostly in photo format.

Let’s do this a little differently, and instead of going day-by-day I’ll group the photos in to various themes and spit out the whole lot. Firstly, walking within the walls of the town!

It bucketed down one day after lunch in Osteria Fornelli

The rainy day above somewhat set some of the mood for this stay. We couldn’t stay under the arch or we would have been late for work. We had to dash and get soaked anyway!

Next – what did it look outside the walls?

At the time of writing this, this lift STILL isn’t operable – but is close to being so

Finally, the pics related to food and drink. Sometimes we ate out, a lot of the time we ate in. It was all, unsurprisingly, good!

That was the week that was in it. I hope you enjoyed the photographs!

Spring Finale with a Coastal Trip to San Vincenzo (31/03-02/04/2023)

While not particularly verbose, this blog is chunky with photos – fair warning!

Well, they say all good Springs must come to an end (not apologising for that one), and so it was with this pre-Easter stay. This blog covers our last 2.5 days, during which we only did one new thing of note: visit a coastal town in which a local friend has a home away from home. However, on the first day – evening to be precise – something interesting happened. Read on!

Well it began one of those days I think I have described before as a ‘living’ day – a holiday, but spent as a day practicing living as an everyday citizen, rather than doing anything special. Could I tell you exactly what we did up to our dinner out? Well, I had gelato and Niamh made some cacio e pepe. So, there we go!

That evening we did go out to dinner, as we knew it was one of our last nights and we didn’t want to manually wash everything. Ok, so there was *some* recognition that we were on holiday. We went to the place beside us, Porgi l’Altra Pancia for a good dinner.

We left happy, as always. We decided to walk to burn off the calories. We walked towards the road above the Roman Theatre ruins, and it was then that we noted that there was an unusual quality to the atmosphere that night.

We saw the red light was in the direction of Piazza dei Priori, so we walked towards it, taking snaps along the way.

The cloud level had descended to just above the town itself, and so the fog bank was acting as a canvas to the medium of the city lights. I can’t say with 100% certainly that the lights were purposely switched to red because of the low cloud, but I would put good money on it that they were.

We wandered up to the square and it was magic. It was also spooky – like a movie set.

Very cool. We wondered what it was like from the main panoramic viewpoint and it got even spookier!

I’m surprised I got any sleep!

Anyway, the next day we vowed we’d get out of the apartment and try to do something new, weather permitting. But I had to take care of a couple of things beforehand. Firstly, there was the matter of my walk. I walked around the back of Piazza XX Settembre, which is something I don’t do often enough. At least some of the photos I take are from scenes rarely seen in this blog.

It was also a market day, and on top of that there was the Ladies’ Crafts market *AND* it was the spring edition of Volterragusto. More on these later and in the video faaaar below.

Goodness me! How did that sneak in there?

We left the town in the late morning and drove to San Vicenzo. We parked probably too far away from the town, and so I won’t link where we parked here – you should be able to do a better job yourself! When we got out of the car, we discovered we were on the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak. We took a little underpass to cross the tracks.

San Vincenzo is a lovely little town, with some pedestrian zones with shops, eateries and bars – and also a lovely marina promenade. Today was very quiet. Or would have been had it not been for the roaring wind. It was exceedingly blustery out – very handy if you want to cool down, but we were already in the off-season. At least it was a dry day, with a largely blue sky. I couldn’t ask for much more, given the time of year. We just took a little stroll (filmed rather than photographed – see video below), before we stopped to look for a place for lunch. Many of them were closed, but we did find a place whose food we really enjoyed: Osteria Christian’s. They had a lovely little… well, I can’t call it an amuse bouche, as it was quite large – but it was a shared place of couscous with cold veggies. It was really tasty and refreshing – I bet it would be a wonderful way to start a meal in the heat of summer.

Afterwards, we retook to the streets and had a blowy look at the strand. The wind was powerful. Clustered on the sand were little puffy balls of air, which may have once contained something, but were now empty. Maybe seed-pods of some kind – I’m not sure. You’ll see them on the video a bit below, about 5m 10s in. What are they?! I think they’re in the bottom right corner of the first pic here.

We went back up the town and then decided to take the marina promenade. It was really lovely around here, I have to say. The sky was clear blue, and because of the time of the year, there weren’t too many people around.

Upon walking back inland to return to the car, we noticed that there were about 3 or 4 gelaterie were open, and I could have gotten my fix there today instead. Not many other shops were open, however – just a couple of restaurants, bars and those gelato stores!

When we got home, rather than returning immediately to the apartment, we had a walk about the indoor Volterragusto stalls. Lots on offer here…. truffle products, beer, salumi, cheeses, wines, pasta… I bought a couple of truffle-based condiments/spreads and we each got a beer; me a stout, and Niamh an IPA. They were nice enough.

Lavender dude – we got something from him later in the year

We didn’t hang around, as we wanted to get a little rest in before heading out for a bit of food. Now, here’s a shame that’s on me: I am not 100% sure where the heck we went for food! The carbonara below very much reminds me of Torre del Porcellino‘s style, as do the tablecloths, but I didn’t think they’d have been open yet, and I could have sworn we finished off the year somehow without going into them. For no good reason – the food is nice there! Maybe I misremember, and it was indeed Torre. Now that I’ve re-looked at the video – I really *was* Torre! Lol! I think I owe Niamh some money!

Here’s a video of the day – enjoy!

Afterwards, we wrapped up the night – our final of this stay – with a stroll.

And to bed for the last time this holiday.

We did have half a day this time around, so we could walk, have lunch at Don Beta… grab a little you-know-what from L’Isola del Gusto – which was the very last thing we did that holiday.

You’ll see us again, when we came back in May/June!

The Real Deposition (20/03/2023)

Sorry I’ve been away a while. I’m working on a project which is chewing up a lot of my time at the moment. Normal service will eventually be resumed.

We spent this day in Volterra – except to take our guest home. She wasn’t due to fly ’til later that evening, so we went on cultural excursion to the Art and Alabaster museum. But first, the walk of course! I kept it inside the walls today, starting with a trip down the steps at Docciola and then working my way up to the Bastione carpark. Although we’re allowed to use this carpark, we’ve never done so. It’s easily the closest one to us, but the entrance to the lane that leads to the carpark is super-narrow. The laneway broadens, but it really isn’t wide enough for 2-way traffic (which it is!), so we have a vague terror of meeting another car going in the opposite direction. At both ends you would have to reverse around narrow corners… and at one end up a steep hill. We’re too chickenshit to do this in a rental.

Some of the views over the Val d’Era from the carpark are rather nice, though.

The walk continued inside the walls. It’s not as demanding a walk as outside, I feel, but there are enough hills and dips to give the heart a good workout in places.

Look! It’s a classic Italian scooter shot!

Not untypical of me, I had dessert before I had lunch, at Chic & Shock. I rarely go anywhere other than L’Isola del Gusto for gelato, but sometimes a change is as good as a rest. Afterwards, we went to La Taverna della Terra di Mezzo for some lunch. And more dessert. I have a sickness.

We said our goodbyes to Robbi and Aurora and made a beeline towards Volterra’s lovely Art and Alabaster Museum, to show our guest around. Failing to secure tickets for three students, we went in grudgingly as adults.

I was super-excited, as I thought they had restored Rosso Fiorentino’s Deposition of Christ, and it was on display. I was surprised at the time, as I thought it didn’t particularly need any restoration. Anyway, it’s one of my favourite pieces in the entire collection, and it’s always nice to see it.

We entered the courtyard after buying the tickets and I noticed a peculiar thing: an exact copy of Rosso Fiorentino’s Deposition of Christ turned on its side, and leaning casually against a wall. I didn’t think anything of that until later.

We toured the alabaster museum first. Volterra is one of the European centres for Alabaster, so if you’re a fan of the medium, you’re in for a treat. I was taking video at the time (see below), so I only have one well-taken photo of a ‘slice’ of a replica of the bell tower in Pisa.

The detail on those Corinthian-style columns is something else!

Our visitor was enthralled with the history and examples, and rendered slightly terrified at the bust of the scary smiling lady in the mock-up of a workshop they have in the museum. This seems to freak everyone out – you can catch a brief glimpse of her perched in front of a window at 09:37 in the video you can find a bit below.

Once done in the alabaster section, it was time to check out the paintings in the adjoining building. Most of the artwork is religious because, back in the day, the Church (or wealthy families needing to curry favour with it) was the only patron wealthy enough to commission pieces.

The stunning ‘Annunciation’ by Luca Signorelli, late 1400s (or is it?)

And the grand-daddy – Rosso Fiorentino’s mannerist masterpeice, The Deposition. I remember seeing this painting in art books when I was a kiddo. However, there was something different about it. It was not in the same condition I was used to seeing it, and access to it was blocked off by plastic glass and temporary walls. Some of the paint had flaked off. And then I understood. This was the real version undergoing restoration – so they were not finished yet. Then what had I been looking at before? Was it the one so casually left leaning on the wall in the courtyard? I lingered for a while, feeling a little disillusioned. Maybe all galleries do this with their masterworks. Is the Signorelli painting above a restored original or another copy? I’m almost too afraid to ask. Perhaps I’m being too idealistically romantic.

Below you can find a video of our day to that point:

We left fully culturalised and took a meandering route back to the apartment.

A while later, it was time to drive our guest to Pisa Airport. I think she enjoyed her time with us over the weekend, and there’s still plenty for her to do should she decide on a return visit.

That evening we chilled. We had hunger pangs and so nipped out to L’Hamburgeria for a bite to take away. It was not bad. I love the fries here – they’re like shoestring chipper-chips!

Finally, we topped off the day with a slow walk on our street and around Piazza dei Priori.

Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think, or if you have any questions.

Cemetery Tour on a Cloudy Day (19/03/2023)

The weather took a turn for the worse which, truth be told, seems to by and large been a prevalent feature of our visits to Tuscany throughout this year I’m sorry to say. At the time of writing this, however, there is something of a heatwave in many parts in Italy – but we’re stuck in rainy old Ireland.

Our guest wanted to hang around Volterra to check out bits and pieces she missed, so we didn’t stray from the town – well, not far, anyway.

I got up alone and had a walk. It was a full walk around the walls, which is always gratifying.

The circumnavigation continued…

The elevator Volterra is finally getting – under construction

Not having walked enough, I entered the town through Porta a Selci, walked parallel to the prison and entered the park for a quick circling!

The prison in the background. It’s an old fortress, which was enhanced by the Medici in the late 15th Century

I had walked so much by then, that unfortunately I broke through to another universe altogether!

Fortunately, I was not one of the droids they were looking for, and I was allowed to re-traverse the veil between planes and return to my apartment!

Our guest took their time to explore a little more around the town, while Niamh and I lounged around at home. We went out ourselves after while for a short walk and parked ourselves a while in the main piazza, people-watching. We met up again with our guest (sort of) at the Roman Theatre ruins.

Being impressed as she was by those ruins, we asked her if she want to check out the dig-site of the Roman Amphiteatre. She gladly agreed, and we wound our way down. When we got there, we discovered that some shrubber had been cut away to allow a better look at the site. It’s not fully open to the public, but sometimes they advertise site tours.

There’s really only so much time you can spend here when there’s no tour arranged. We ooh’d and ahh’d a bit before we crossed the road and into the cemetery. I don’t think our guest had seen an Italian cemetery before, so we explained (not that we are experts on the matter) that after a period of burial, the remains are removed to a ‘drawer’ in the walls. All of these slots are well-maintained and many have photos fixed to the front.

We moved from one massive courtyard to the other, by taking stairs down, taking glances at the photos every now and again. Some of them are smiling, some are dour – all are interesting. Niamh suddenly exclaimed “Wow – someone’s put one of the O’s on their grave!” After inquiring what she meant, she instead pointed towards the tomb in question. And it did indeed have one of Staccioli’s O’s on it – a mini-version. Then it struck me: this might be his grave – he is Volterran by birth after all!

I clattered down the stairs excitedly and marched swiftly over to it, and confirmed that it was, indeed, Mauro Staccioli’s grave – his wife is interred there too. I love his sculptures – simple but stark and strong. At stated in other blogs, his works are dotted around Volterra like hidden Pokemon! Google Images of some of his works.

I was filming at the time, so I stood there in reverence for a while, just occasionally nattering at the invisible people on the other side of the camera.

Here’s a video of the day!

We trundled back uphill.. all the way uphill, mind you – the walk there is fine, the walk back can be challenging, depending on your fitness.

We chilled back at the apartment for a while, and then went out for a brief walk (the Sith were still hanging about in the square), and wolfed down our dinner at La Vecchia Lira!

Thanks for reading, all. Please leave a like and let me know what you think!

The Verdant Theatre and Colourful Lajatico (18/03/2023)

We had looked up the weather for our first weekend, and saw that today (Saturday) was going to be the best day of the next few. Our friend would be leaving on Monday, but had also declared that she would have been perfectly happy to stay in Volterra. We had spent a little time in the market that morning too, and it looked like the forecasts would pan out correctly, so we dragged her out, and were glad we did in the end. I think she thought so, too.

But first, my walk of the morning! Here are the pics… enjoy!

They were beginning to set up the market

As mentioned earlier we had a little trip to the market. It was still slightly shy of the season opening, so the stalls were still in the main squares.

We took another mini-stroll to some key photo-spots.

We took the Pisan road to get to The Theatre of Silence (Il Teatro del Silezio), where Andrea Boccelli holds his summer concerts near Lajatico, near where he grew up. We have visited it before, but when the land was still scorched from the summer. This time we saw it in all its verdant glory! I have to admit that, while I recognise Andrea Bocelli as an extraordinary talent, I have no hankering to ever go to those concerts. Howerver, the Theatre is absolutely gorgeous, no matter the weather.

The temperature hit about 21/22c – close to the max in which our guest feels comfortable. There was a little wind, as the place is super-exposed, but there wasn’t nearly as much as last time. We stayed, we saw, we took a few snaps and headed towards the nearby art-strewn village of Lajatico!

It’s such a beautiful little place, with well-appointed art-installations – and like many picturesque hilltowns, is kept immaculately clean. We walked about it, admiring how well they’ve curated the buildings to blend in with the artwork, or is it vice-versa? I think maybe it’s a little of both.

Even the water-tower is getting in on the action – painted like one of the floors of the leaning tower of Pisa.

After I had posted some pictures on Facebook and Instagram, Alice, who works in our Property Managers but who lives in Lajatico, gave out to us (in a friendly way) for not letting her know we were in her town. She promised to go out for a drink with us next time we were here. I love Italians!

Back in town later that evening, we had aperitivi in Bar Sportivo and L’Incontro. Our guest met our friend, Mary, and both are originally from Chicago, so there were good chats had! Our guest, Niamh and I finished off our day in Porgi L’Altra Pancia for a well-deserved meal and a glass or three of wine!

We filmed the day too, and you can watch that below!

Thanks for reading (and watching?) all – I hope you enjoyed the blog. Please leave me comments and suggestions below!

The Calm Before A Disaster (12&13/09/2022)

Another brief one!

Something awesome and something terrible happened this week, but all will be revealed in the blog after this one.

We had another week of work (or so we thought) this week, and sure enough the Monday and Tuesday went swimmingly enough!

Monday 12th
I’ve been well proud of myself looking back on this time away, as I got right back into the habit of walking in the morning again. Today, I carried on with that.

The light that morning was spectacular, so I carried on farther around the walls.

We worked through the morning, and went to Osteria La Pace, a lonely little place, just at the prison end of town. This makes it sound unattractive, but really that small section is also quite lovely – the ‘Cool shot!’ photo above is taken right next to it. They have some lovely home-cooked Tuscan favourites here. Niamh had the the strozzapreti (a twisted pasta shape that literally means ‘priest-strangler’) with wild-boar and olives. I didn’t want to have anything quite so heavy, as I wanted to have their killer tiramisu after, so I had their version of zuppa alla Volterrana (because veggies).

The boar sauce here is killer, but the dish is quite heavy

They used to serve the tiramisu in an outsized coffee cup, but it was just in a massive dessert cup instead. Still tasted lovely – one of the best in town. Afterwards, we took a brief walk about town before heading back to work. The light was still being fantastic.

Laneway of the Castrated. Does your home town have any weird street names?!

That evening we went to La Vecchia Lira that evening. It was my turn for wild boar, while Niamh took the lighter option of (I think) seabass. Neither of us are fans of whole-fish, but Niamh made no bones about it (sorry)!

Home, then bed and ready for another day’s work!

Tuesday 13th
Another morning, another walk!

We worked dutifully again (so haaaard for the money), and grabbed a sandwich shop in Pisa Province: La Sosta del Priore. Tuscans sure love their sandwiches. You’d see what I mean if you went to Florence and checked out the queues at All’Antico Vinaio (or any of their branches). However, Volterra has its own queue-generator in La Sosta del Priore! The food is excellent.

Also, Estathe… an amazing drink in hot weather!

And of course a quick walk to burn the calories!

The view from the killer kitchen stairs in our apartment (more next week on this!)

That evening we tried a place we’ve only ever gone to a couple of times in 4 or so years: Antica Taverna. It’s one of those places that has everything on the menu (i.e. pizza and pasta), so we kinda shunned it for maybe being a bit too touristy. However, we thought we’d give it another shot as places can change. We were glad we did. While the food didn’t light up the night, it was still pretty good, and the service was super-friendly. They had a little display of fresh porcini, so I went over to check it out – the smell of fresh porcini is amazing!

Home and bed.

The next day we met friends and had them stay over – but then something pretty catastrophic happened. More on that next week!

Turnabout is Fair Play (11/09/2022)

This will be a short one!

Well, Marie and Lorenzo had guests to greet that morning, so it was a quick goodbye before they headed back to Vicopisano. We agreed to meet for lunch that day. We were also going to meet Marisa and David, who have their own YouTube channel, there too, so there was a modicum of excitement! In addition, it was also Collectors Market day in Vicopisano – a triple-treat.

We wandered out to main Piazza to walk Marie and Lorenzo back to their car, only to be greeted by a few dozen classic cars. There seems to be some sort of car rally in Volterra nearly every month, and there were some beauties.

I shot and edited a shortish music-video style thing too.

After seeing them to the gate, we wandered back and spent a couple of hours in the apartment. We had to meet the gang for lunch, and so it wasn’t much of a wait before we had to get to the car for our journey to Vicopisano. It’s only an hour there.

We were soon reunited and first met Marisa and David near the centre of town. They were in town to shop for furniture and oddities for their new place in Chianni. Before we assisted them, it was time for lunch! Lorenzo and Marie brought us to Aurora Taverna Toscana – it was an all-in-one bar, patisserie and restaurant. Heck, they even own the gelateria next door – the full gamut… you’d never have to leave!

We had a lovely 3-course lunch, and took our sweet time about it too, which was great as we had a great time just getting to know each other and having some laughs. They are all such super people! The food was delicious, especially the pork steaks I got, which were cooked in a yummy peppercorn sauce.

At the end of lunch, I caught one of the most fabulous smells you can ever smell: fresh porcini. It was the beginning of the season. Let me tell you, dried porcini have absolutely nothing on fresh! They smelled amaaaazing.

A couple of hours later (a long Tuscan lunch!), we wandered up one of the streets to check out the collectible stalls. Marisa found a nice mirror and table and I played the role of boy scout and helped carry it back to her car.

Why not check out Marisa’s own video of the day, guest-starring yours truly and Niamh!

We got back to Volterra, and arriving at Piazza XX Settembre we heard some wonderful close-harmony singing from the old cathedral, which is now the Museum of Sacred Art. I’d been to Volterra on and off for a little over 4 years by then, and I’d never heard of the Blessing of the Salt, but this is exactly what we caught. We listened to the wonderful voices for a while (I am a sucker for harmonies), but couldn’t enter the church, as it seems you had to book. I got a little footage, which I edited into mini-video: