sandwich – Our Man In Volterra

There are a fair few photos in this blog – you have been warned! It’s pretty long too – it was a busy day!

Every year, Tuscan tenor Andrea Bocelli plays a couple of concerts in late July near Lajatico, the municipal centre of the area he was raised. He was actually brought up in small town just north of there: La Sterza, and there you can see several buildings bearing his name: a restaurant, a cantina and, most improbably, a farm machinery outlet.

That day, we decided to take a look at where his performances take place: Il Teatro del Silenzio (the theatre of silence). So called, I assume, not because Signore Bocelli has a sense of sarcasm, but that it is completely outdoors, away from the town, in nature. I guess wind doesn’t count on the decibel scale. The surroundings were supposed to be lovely, and so we were looking forward to the trip, and maybe getting some lunch in Lajatico itself.

But first – the morning walk. Looks like we got lucky with the clarity of the sky, if not the actual temperature that day.

I walked to the panoramic view at Piazza Martiri della Libertà, down viale dei Ponti, re-entered at Porta a Selci and carried on home from there.

Once done, washed and breakfasted we took the all-too-familiar road towards Pisa. The first part of this road always enthralls us, with views of sweeping valleys dotted here and there with agriturismi and tiny hamlets, surrounded by olive groves, cypress and vineyards. As soon as you have entered Molina d’Era, however, the road bores a little as it flattens, although you will still see glimpses of Tuscany-in-a-bottle scenes such as farmland, small homesteads on hills and distant borghi atop ridges. 98% of the time at the end of this section of road we turn right towards La Sterza, whether we’re going to Pisa, Pontadera, La Rosa etc. for shopping or actually heading back to Ireland. This time we were turning left! Excitement!

A couple of kilometers later, we turned right at San Giovanni di Val d’Era towards Lajatico. If you went straight on instead, you could take an alternative route to Volterra, on a road plagued by subsidence, but offering views easily rivalling the Crete Senesi, or even the Val d’Orcia itself. Maybe more on that another time, though. For now – onwards towards Lajatico!

The theatre itself lies on the outskirts of the town – to the southeast – so, we followed Missus Google’s advice and wound up at the near-empty carpark. We got out, and were glad of our jackets. The base temperature wasn’t so bad, but the wind howled about us like banshees, doing the day a little injustice.

There were only a couple of other small groups of people here (three nuns and an older couple), and one or two workmen who where tending the immediate area. It took a minute, but once we had gotten used to the gales of the exposed region, we took in the landscape. And it astonished.

The theatre is the circular area on the left. In the distance, Volterra sitting on top of the butte!

As you can see above, we spotted Volterra in the far distance, crowning the butte.

We headed down farther, to take a look at some of the sculptures on display, as well as the theatre itself, taking snaps and filming all the while!

The whole area is quite spectacular and well worth a visit. Maybe not during the concerts, though!

And finally, two of my favourite ever photos:

Captions not needed!

I would recommend a visit to the Teatro for sure, but maybe during the off-season, like we did – and you can forget it in late July, unless you’re actually attending the concerts. The road to the place is narrow, and I can only imagine how insanely busy it can be. I know from a local that, although they are grateful for the business that is brought, Lajatico becomes a little unbearable during the gigs. It’s a small place, and I can imagine hordes of people would spoil it.

We had been to Lajatico before (before I had started this blog – although I’m sure I still have photos), and found it lovely, but it was during a cooler day, and the town was shrouded in mist. Today was bright and sunny, and the light made the colours of the town pop with extraordinary clarity. This time, we found Lajatico utterly captivating. We had no idea that there was so much art placed in and around town, on the walls, hidden inside buildings with doors which, at a distance, seemed randomly left open. They had placed coloured lanterns over the street lights, and I imagine the town looks amazing at night.

Piazza Vittorio Veneto – the main square. See the red lanterns?

We arrived at the main church in the town, dedicated to San Leonardo Abate and had a look inside and in the nearby park.

Always check the ceilings in Italian places of worship!

Once done there, we headed back up the town to see if we could find somewhere to eat a place of pasta, snapping furiously on the way.

At first we checked out a recommended restaurant – different to the one in which we’d already eaten – but it was closed that day for lunch (Il Marmaldo). In fact, it looked like it only opened at weekends for lunch, and during the evening for most other days. A pity. But, at least we had Ristoro Da Nello – where we had eaten before and had good food and tons of geniune small-town charm. Right? Well… no. Sadly, they were on holidays for a few weeks while we were there, and so were closed too. Another pity. So, I had a flick around Google Maps and remembered that we had never visited Ghizzano, and it certainly looked big enough to have a restaurant, so we headed back to the carpark and drove there.

Ghizzano is a small town nestled atop a hill (quelle surprise!), aways north and a little west of Volterra. What makes it different to the other hilltowns of Volterra? Well it is down to the inhabitants, of course, but also three artists: Alicja Kwade, David Tremlett and Patrick Tuttofuoco. You can read more about them here. But essentially, parts of the town are outdoor art installations – the most notable of which are the buildings of Via di Mezzo – all it seemingly just took is paint. You won’t find many streets in Tuscany looking anything like Via di Mezzo.

At the time of writing this, Google Street View last visited this street in 2011, before the installation was implemented. You can check it out here.

After having a brief tour of Via di Mezzo, we went in search of a restaurant. Not finding one, we instead headed into a cute little bar, attached to a really old-school looking alimentari (food store) called Bar Alimentari Campani. The foodstore, although very clean, looked designed out of the 1950’s, with simple wooden square shelves linging the walls from floor to ceiling. At the deli end, we cheekily asked the young lady there if there was a restaurant in the neighbourhood. She shook her head and pointed us in the direction of Peccioli and Legoli, both about 15 minute drives away. We didn’t feel like another trip in the car to quest for a restaurant, so we looked hungrily instead at the wonderful produce behind the glass counter. We shrugged and thought, sure a change is as good as a rest and went for sandwiches. I had a baguette with cooked prosciutto and fresh pecorino (the latter is the kind of pecorino that has a very short shelf-life and is much softer than the harder, more aged, pecorino you may find in Ireland. Niamh more had the same with added tomato.

We thanked the lady and went back out to the bar section to pay for the sandwiches, a couple of accompanying drinks and a small bag of BBQ crisps (potato chips). Amusingly, that took us about 15 minutes in a non-existant queue. Anyway, we managed to escape, and went in search of a bench on which we could sit and watch the world go by. We found one, near a church and an artist’s studio. By God it was quiet in Ghizzano, but lovely.

We broke out our food and started eating. Well, it was a minor revelation. I enjoyed that simple sandwich like I had enjoyed few others. The ham was wonderful and the textures of the cheese and crunchy crust contrasted wonderfully. It really was good for a change, rather than putting yourself under pressure to find a place that does good hot food.

As we ate on the bench, the crusts cracking and crumbling to the stone flags below, a larger vehicle pulled up near us and a father and son climbed out and headed into a building beside us. The father left the car completely unlocked. I’m not sure anyone in Ireland, even in the smallest of towns, would leave their car unlocked beside a couple of strangers. He saluted us and they both disappeared.

Anyway, once done with lunch, we disposed of our trash in a bin beside a big blue ball (see photo above)!

Our carpark, as it happened, was beside a modern cooperative mill where people take their olives for pressing into oil. There was a small (currently closed) colourful bar area where people could wait while their green gold was being pressed. Wandering about outside, very randomly, was a peacock. Just one of the more unusual sights of the day.

We got in the car, and it was my turn to drive. I punched in the instruction for going back home to Volterra – much of it on roads we’d never travelled before, which is usually what I enjoy. Except that the first part of the road back wasn’t enjoyable – not at all. It quickly crumbled from asphalt to one of those bumpy gravelled roads, made worse by the previous week’s rain. At one stage, we both winced as we heard the brief crunching of the underside of our rental being scraped by a ridge in the middle of the road. It was another kilometer at least before we managed to find a proper way again, but it was plain sailing from there.

Have a look at our video of our day out below.

I had to have a gelato to calm my nerves after that awful road!

Our day wasn’t done. To treat ourselves after our lunchtime forebearance, we decided to head out to La Vecchia Lira for dinner. This would be no sandwich, so we had a bit of a golden-hour walk before we headed into the restaurant itself.

We headed into the restaurant, and the waitress there (whose English was really good) recognised us, and both her and the owner gave us a cheery welcome. We settled in, and ordered our food and drink.

Once again I had the cod and leek-stuffed ravioli. Once again I was sent to heaven.

And that was our day. I hope you enjoyed the read. Please leave me a comment and/or a question below. I would love to hear from you!

This was a another fairly packed day, with a lot of driving involved. First of all, of course, we got up for a walk about town. Volterra was partly surrounded by a sea of milky clouds – it looks just beautful in the dawn light.

It must have been a pretty short route – to the Punto Panoramico and back!

The view from our upper terrace (how posh are we?!)

In fairness to me, it wasn’t down to laziness, but because I knew we had a decent journey ahead of us. Once again, there aren’t any shots of the journey, but you can find a video of our day towards the end of this blog. Just be patient!

We set out for a place we had visited before – Castellina in Chianti – as we found it the loveliest of the towns within the area. When we got there, we parked in a carpark which I thought used to be free, but this time there was a parking meter in it. I may be mistaken. Anyway, the fates were kind to us, as there were a small group of ladies ahead who seemed baffled by the machine. After they shrugged and left, I had a look, and it was broken. Yay! Free parking!

We took the pic, as it was proof that the machine was out of service, in case we need to explain our case to the Municipal Police. We ignored the poor machine and continued on up into the town instead.

Chiesa di San Salvatore (Church of Saint Salvador)

If you’ve ever bought a Chianti bottle of wine, you’ll notice not only the DOCG label on the cork (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita – an indication that you’re getting the genuine article, from the genuine region), but that there’s a large rooster emblem printed somewhere on the vineyard’s own labelling. Why is that? Check out this article – it explains the whole history very well. No point in me plagiarising it! In it, there’s a cool story of how the city-states of Florence and Siena used roosters to decide their borders between each other.

Chianti should be made with at least 80% Sangiovese (meaning Blood of John, rather than Saint John) grapes. Many so-called ‘table wines’ in the area are made the same way, but being outside the designated region, they don’t get the famous badge. Many taste just as good, in my opinion, and being on the dry side, they’re excellent for cooking with too.

Anyway, we wandered about the town prior to lunch, seeing if there was a restaurant that took our fancy.

There was a restaurant deeper into these tunnels.

We wandered down a small collection of tunnels that ran parallel to the main street, and found a restaurant there (Ristorante Sotto le Volte), and the menu looked so good. There was lady outside who was folding napkins and generally busying herself about the tables. A friendly sheepdog was napping under one of the tables outside, but was happy to acknowledge our few rubs with wags of his tail. Unfortunately, despite the lady’s presence and work-effort, she declared that the restuarant wasn’t opened for lunch, so we had to continue our quest.

There were a number of restaurants opened, but we found it hard to take our minds of the previous year’s meal in Taverna Squarcialupi. And so it called to us. We were welcomed by friendly staff, who looked at our Covid vaccination certificates, and sat the three of us in the lovely slightly air-conditioned dining room. It was far too hot to eat outside on their panoramic balcony, sadly. This was confirmed a little while later when a family who had been sat outside ran back in and asked for a table near us, which they got. Such a big difference between Castellina and Volterra at lunchtime. Volterra was getting so busy that most restaurants couldn’t accept walk-ins, even during lunch.

The meal

Looked so lovely out, but it was, in fact, a blazing furnace.

We took one more look at the chuch and the main medieval square (see the video).

We left then, with no parking fine(!) and amazingly came close to genuinely earning another ticket by, immediately driving the wrong way down a one-way street. Thanks, Missus Google! (Yes, I was driving!) Thankfully, it was a short street, and the driver ofthe 4×4 I met was understanding and able to move out of the way. I was guided by a kindly local the feck out of his town. And on towards the southern border of the Chianti area, to a town we’d never visited before: Castelnuvo Beradegna. We went by a rural route, so it took us the guts of an hour, but it was a fun drive.

We got parking easy enough just outside the old town. The town had an interesting effect on me. I have to say I really liked it, even though it was a ghost town when we arrived (in the middle of riposo). It had such a lovely residential area atop the main hill.

Wonder of wonders, however, we found a bar open – it had gelato, and we were baked, and in need of some cooling off. We grabbed a cone or cup each and sat outside in shade and devoured it. It was nice to see a couple of people other than ourselves. It is a lived-in town, rather than a tourist destination, but with everything more or less closed, it was time to head home. We captured a couple more shots on the way back to the car.

It was only a few kilometers to the motorway, so we headed in that direction, as we didn’t mid a quicker rather than lovelier route home. On the way, we stopped to refuel the T-Cross (not the most economical of cars). Niamh got out and managed to decipher the instructions in a couple of minutes. She got back in not a moment too soon, because the heavens opened. A cyclist stopped at the garage to take shelter underneath the pump canopy, while we headed home. Rain was rare in Tuscany during July/August, so it was a ‘Dear Diary’ moment.

There’s a video of our day below!