palio – Our Man In Volterra

Well, we did lots, worked lots. There were a few magnificent highlights, and all are below in this summary of most of the rest of our October stay.

Thursday, October 19th
The best thing we did this day, and indeed possibly one of the best things you can do ANY day if you’re in the area is go to Bis Osteria for dinner. We didn’t visit it during the whole of 2024, and that is a fact about which I am absolutely disgusted. It’s one of the best restaurants I know, and that night we had one of the best pastas we’d ever eaten: green lasagne sheets with mushrooms – amazing – certainly the pasta of the year for me for 2023.

Before that, we had lunch in Porgi l’Altra Pancia and looked at some classic Porsches!

I had this! With tomatoes! Am I making peace at last?

And later we drove to Colle di Val d’Elsa and headed to Bis. They remembered us from last time (we know the chef, but waiting staff knew us too – good memories). We had the fabulous food:

Friday, October 20th
We actually did a thing again this day! That evening we had dinner with local friends in La Vecchia Lira, before we all headed off to the theatre to watch a Pink Floyd tribute band. They were fabulous – more true to the album than Floyd themselves, accents aside – and it was an excellent night!

Saturday, October 21st
Today, we rested. We went to the market and for our big meal went to La Mangiatoia for pizza!

Sunday, October 22nd
It was Volterragusto – the twice-annual foodie-fest in Volterra; mostly focusing on chocolate and black truffle. A winning combination, in my book! Here are some pics from the day.

But that wasn’t the main event. Oh no! There was the matter of the second palio (competition, more or less) of the year: Palio dei Caci, where contestants from the various contrade (neighbourhoods) guide cheese wheels downhill through an obstacle course made of straw bales. And it was good fun! Interestingly, a guy from Villamagna, a small village within the comune (township) of Volterra won it – this meant that they had done the double that year, by winning both the tug-of-war palio and this one! Couple all of the action with medieval pomp and ceremony, then it makes for a fun day.

Afterwards we had a walk and a gelato and wandered until it was time to eat. We went to Ristorante Etruria, but indoors to the wonderfully frescoed area. The food was decent enough.

Monday-Wednesday, October 23rd-25th
It was a working week again, and the weather turned. We still got out for walks, gelati and local meals!

Thursday-Friday, October 26th-27th
These were our last two days in 2023. They started off with a walk…

But it ended up with a wonderful evening with Ivana and Claudia from Marcampo. They know the area so well, and choose the restaurant we ate at. They’re such lovely people too – no finer people to stay with if you’re planning on coming over. And I got a chance to practice my Italian a little – a bonus only. We drove to Agriturismo Santa Vittoria and had a little aperitivo while we waited on the ladies.

The views from here during the daytime must be amazing

I told the owner he had a beautiful place and he thanked me. Then started talking naturally, which he kept up for the entire visit there. While the ladies gave me tons of confidence with my Italian, the owner’s staccato gunfire somewhat reduced that! I just need more listening practice. Anyway, did he make up for it with the food. One of the best pastas I had this year – pici with pheasant and black truffle. Magnificent.

We left with hugs and very satisfied! Thanks, ladies.

Our last day was another working day, and the major highlight of it was the amazing sunset we had out Piazza dei Fornelli. Take a look at these beautiful colours:

Well, that was 2023! We started off 2024 in Venice, of all places, and I have already blogged and videoed that – look a few rows up on the archive page – there’s a trio of entries. I’ll clump the rest of 2024 into groups like I have done recently – with special attention given to the very cool.

Here’s a video of the last couple of weeks in Volterra. Give it a watch, and thanks as always for your support!

Well, it was market day again yesterday, so after breakfast we toddled down to the carpark beside the Roman ruins to have a looksee. We all got little items of clothing. I bought sandles, as we hope to rent medieval costumes today, and wearing them with modern walking shoes is not a good look.

We have stayed in Volterra 6 times, for a total of about 9 weeks, and yet we still hadn’t visited the Roman or Etruscan ruins, so we decided to remedy that finally yesterday. I think it’s just €5 in per person (our visitor bought a Volterra Card, so she could check out most of the town’s main cultural attractions over 3 days) – which gets you into both the Roman site, and the Etruscan site in the public park.

The Roman site was pretty good – although you can’t climb into the actual theatre (except if you buy a ticket during their arts festival).

The Etruscan site, however, is rather tired-looking and in need of a bit of a cash-injection. There are a couple of informational pedestals which are almost unreadable due to sun-damage, and the site itself is small. I suppose it’s not bad for €5 per person, for both sites. On the plus side, you can climb down into the Roman cistern here. It’s a dizzying climb down a narrow spiral staircase into the chill, dank room below, but it’s mad to think they were engineering these things a couple of millenia ago.

Afterwards, we went to La Terra di Mezzo for lunch – wine and limoncello was had.

Niamh and I went to a crafts store to see if we could buy anything to start personalising the apartment, while our guest headed off to have a look at some other attractions. We found a nice little cypress tree ornament, and a limited print of a lovely, stylistic painting of the walled village of Monteriggioni, which we have not yet visitied. We’ll remedy that during this trip!

I crashed for a couple of hours, as I was still a bit bushed after yesterday’s trip to Pisa. At around 17:20, I was groggy, but heard the unmistakable sound of drums heading our way.

I’d forgotten that there would be some medieval fair stuff happening this evening. I wrongly thought that it would be a repeat of last week, and hurriedly texted our guest to adviser her to make her way to Piazza dei Priori (the main square). I got dressed and lashed up there myself.

When I got there, the lords and ladies were already arrayed at their table, and it seemed to me that the Master of Ceremonies (the same amazing riffing, rhyming guy from last week) was looking for volunteers for something.

As it happens, it was for racing cheese-wheels (well, wooden versions) around a simple course in the square. It was professionals versus volunteers, and was a bit of fun. They have their own ‘palio’ involving these cheese-wheels they race down an obstacle course in October (the ‘Palio dei Caci’). Sadly, we will be missing that. So, this was a good alternative!

You can check out a short video of a bout here:

They announced that something was going to be taking place in the square at 21:30, but my meagre Italian didn’t pick up exactly what it was. We went home and had the first set of a large batch of beef ragú Niamh made up. It was nice and coarse – I love it that way!

After dinner, we had a couple of glasses of wine, and I managed to catch this gorgeous panoramic shot of the sunset from our upper terrace.

We went to the square, just in time to catch the entrance of the dignitaries, combatants and the teams representing their contrade for the Palio del Cero.

The teams would be contesting in a tug-of-war competition!

Once again, it was a knock-out affair, with semi-finals and a final. The sbandieratori (flag jugglers) put on a couple of shows before the semis, and the final itself. A fun evening, although we didn’t get bleacher seats and so were a little foot/backsore after nearly two hours of standing in the same spot.

The lord and lady representing the winning contrada were frocked and awarded.

And then, to bed.

I woke up, but decided on not doing a walk today, as I will be on my feet for the Medieval festival for much of the day. We also have an All-Ireland final to watch this afternoon!

I’ll tell you all about the 2nd day of the Medieval Festival tomorrow. Toodles!