Tag: travel

2021)

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!

The only other thing I have to report from the day, is that I enjoyed this wonderful piece of deliciousness from La Sosta del Priori.

Finocchiona (fennel-infused salami), caramelised onions and pecorino cheese in a 5-grain bun. Delish.

I hope you enjoyed the read. Please leave a like and let me know what you think – and also please ask me stuff!

We Came Back, Baby (04/08/2021)

We had a short holiday in the West of Ireland back in June, and then decided to pick our date for our return to Volterra. Looking at the vaccination schedule and cycles and waves of Covid, we made our move to book a couple of weeks in August. This time with guests: Niamh’s sister for the first week, my brother for the second.

Then the nerves set in (what else is new?).

The weeks seemed to flow at times like treacle, and other days it sped by. There were hiccups, of course, mostly around flights. Aer Lingus cancelled a ton of their European schedule, so Niamh had to scramble to re-book flights with Ryanair and re-do the booking for the carpark and carhire. Our guests had to manage some of that too. Then Ryanair shifted both outbound and inbound flights to later on in the day… cue further nervousness.

Then we finally found a bit of a saving: we’d get Niamh’s sister to drop us to the airport, and my brother to bring us home… presto! No carparking charges!

The day finally came, and everything went off without any further hitches. I think my anxiety was possibly slightly higher during this airport experience than I was last year. You never know why… it is what it is. I never really felt truly uncomfortable, though.

The airport was certainly busier than last year.

Lots of shoppers. Niamh bought cosmetics for collection, but they wouldn’t have been open when we flew back, so they posted them instead. Good service!

We’d arrived at the airport in plenty of time, and so were able to shop and sit *twice* for food. The ladies had sandwiches, and after I had an overpriced burger. It was nice, though – it hit the spot!

At the departure gates, there were the usual checks of passports, but really only cursory checks of our vaccination certs and passenger locator forms. Some dickhead in the line mouthed off to a staff member when he wasn’t wearing a mask, but soon piped-down and masked-up when confronted a second time.

We got on the plane, and we pretty much left on time – certainly nothing like last year.

The flight was great, if fairly packed… social distancing not a thing on these flights – although everyone was wearing a mask unless they were eating/drinking. The people density on the flight was pretty much the same as last year – although people were adhering to mask-wearing more this year.

We didn’t have any carousel cases with us – just carry-on, so we… um… waited for a longish time at passport control while they slowly funnelled about 20 people at a time. Then we were off!

And off to Sixt! These guys are expensive, but service and vehicle-wise, they’re the best we’ve tried. There are no shysters here. Although when we opted for an upgrade to an automatic VW T-Cross, we considered the initial upgrade price a little too steep, and they discounted it – I’m not thrilled with that aspect, but it goes to show that you should always refuse the first offer!

We took the obligatory half-dozen shots of the car to ensure we had no scratches that were previously. We’ve never had issues with scratches or previous damage (that wasn’t clearly documented) with Sixt. In fact, the last time we were here, we brought back a car with a very light scratch across about half the length of the car – it was a finger-paint job, but still they didn’t charge us for it.

Our steed for this holiday. The automatic transmission was a bit weird, and it was a bit of a gas-guzzler, but it was comfy and the aircon and CarPlay feature worked a treat!

The car journey to Volterra went well too. The sky flickered with lightning a couple of times before settling down. It reminded me of the beginning of our longer stay a couple of years ago. We arrived similarly late – at least 23:30, if not later.

We didn’t have our parking permit arranged yet, so we had to find a free spot. Almost all (not the underground carpark) public pay parking sites are free from 20:00 to 08:00, and we found a free spot in the carpark next to the Roman Theatre ruins by the Porta Fiorentina. It would mean I’d have to get up and move the car to the large free carpark the next day, but I didn’t care. I was here!

It was a little quiet here at this time of night.

I was told by Niamh and her sister, I was practically skipping up the street. I have to admit, I was pretty damn happy at being back, and many of my symptoms seemed to have melted away. That was probably because I only had one thing on my mind:

Gelato, baby! From L’Isola del Gusto, no less.

We’d had the apartment cleaned before we arrived, so the only thing we had to do was arrange the bedwear and hit the hay, which we duly did. If I recall correctly, I slept ok, depsite the heat. We only have fans; no aircon – and August is the hottest month there.

I’ll update the blog with what we did during our days here over the next month or two, but please do also check out my YouTube Channel (Our Man in Volterra; I’m learning, be gentle!), and specifically this short music video showing our journey to Volterra.

Thanks for reading and watching – I hope you enjoyed it!

My Scooby-doo moment

I lazed about for a couple of hours after my walk yesterday, and then we both went out to buy ingredients. If we’re not eating we’re buying food – that’s the way it seems to be right now! After shopping, we saw that the Volterra theatre was open, so we went in, donated and had a looksee.

It’s small, but perfectly formed, as the saying goes. Gorgeous! Niamh made lunch with some of the pasta we’d saved over from the previous day, plus a few grilled veggies, rocket and some mortadella (a wide sausage, with pistacchio nuts – not going to lie: it reminds me a lot of fancy luncheon meat, but I love it).

I had to spend more time indoors while I dealt with Sky over our inability to stream via SkyGo. No satisfactory conclusion was reached, but we’ll get by with YouTube, Netflix and Amazon… and, of course, all Volterra and Tuscany has to offer!

After that debacle, we decided to get some much-needed dessert, but rather than going to L’isola Del Gusto (the place to go to get gelato usually, as it’s one of the best in Tuscany), L’Incontro was also recommended to us, so we gave it a bash. I had orange cream and tirimasu, and it was fantastic – well done, folks!

We walked the calories off a little before heading home, chilling, and having another meal, cooked by Niamh. Are you beginning to sense a pattern yet? We got a couple of juicy pork steaks on-the-bone from Antica Macelleria, and had ourselves an Irish-looking dinner. It was fab, and a needed change.

After another while we headed out to see if there was anything going on around town. In the main square (Piazza dei Priori), a stage was erected, and some seating placed out for the townsfolk and visitors. While Volterra gets a lot of tourism from the UK, Germany and Holland, the bulk of it seems to be Italian, which is a great indicator, in my book. A couple of comedians (we think) warmed the crowd up, but it being entirely lost on us, we went back home. Looking at my social media feeds this morning, it seems as though there was music afterwards. Ah well…

This morning, while Niamh continued her ‘Couch to 5k’ programme, I walked to the only gate in Volterra I hadn’t been to yet: Porta Diana. The town’s cemetary is nearby and it’s a relaxing little walk. At least the walk there is, the walk back is a different affair.

The gate no longer has its arch, sadly. I can only speculate that this happened during the retreat of the Germans. Portal all’Arco was saved, but sadly Diana was not. If anyone reading this knows, please drop me a comment. You can check out some old photos of it here.

I noticed that there were some Etruscan ruins not too far away, so I decided to check them out. The road wound steeply downhill, and I knew in the back of my mind that I would certainly pay for all with the walk back into town. Halfway there, a car heading towards me had to jam-on, as an adolescent doe ran across its path, just yards away. Where it had come from, stood a young buck, possibly contemplating the same move. I didn’t make eye-contact for long, and swiftly made my way downwards. I’m sorry now that I didn’t take a shot of him. When I got closer to the ruins, I saw there were indents, cavelets (if you will), dug into the side of the road, with walls on top. I knew I was in Etruscan country then.

I found the entrance to the site and made my way by a dusty path to one of the tombs, and climbed in. It was electrically lit, so I wasn’t too spooked (yet).

I only spent a minute down there, as I thought the place might be mozzie-infested, although I didn’t see or hear any insects. A feeling of unease came over me, and I decided to, as masculinely as possible, make my way back up the stairs. Then I heard a click behind me. I moved again, and it became a crackling-crunch, so I bolted up the first few steps and then realised I had my damn water bottle in my back pocket. The plastic for water bottles in Italy is a lot thinner than we use back home, so you only have to look at it to make it crackle. I felt a bit of a tool, and slowly made my way up the rest of the steps and out.

The walk back was horrendous. I mean it was beautiful, but I am unfit and it damn-near killed me. I probably won’t go back to those tombs on foot, until I get a little more active. The 1.7km walk home was totally uphill, some of it steep. I had to rest on my feet a couple of times and took another snap of Diana’s magnificent Etruscan blocks.

Today, we might do a little furniture shopping. We really need a wardrobe and a cabinet for the telly. Maybe we’ll look at some sunbeds too.

A dopo!

We’re going to need fans!

The humidity on our first night was around the 80% mark (due to a storm – humidity is usually very low here in the summer), and although the temperature was down, it still felt really warm. Before we arrived, we naively told people that, due to the thickness of the walls, our apartment will be well-insulated against the heat. It was more than a little worrying when we felt 3-4 degrees warmer after we climbed the first two flights of stairs with our luggage. Volterra had also had its heatwave recently, and the apartment was really warm when we got in.

During the day, it is possible to open the back door to the terrace and create an airflow by leaving windows opened throughout the apartment. It works wonderfully. Whilst I know Volterra isn’t exactly a crime hotspot, we’d rather not have to do this overnight. Additionally, it was stormy that first night, so we had to be careful about letting windows/doors slam, and having rain come in.

Before this year, we had remembered Volterra as being quite sleepy come 22:00 – when everything seems to shut, apart from restaurants. That night a new place near us was having a Boney-M revival night, and it was loud. I was still glad of it, though, as I had begun to wonder what Volterra’s younger generations do for a bit of craic. It’s great to see a little night life in the town!

Anyway, with clothes pretty much shed (sorry for that image!), I fell asleep. Then I had to get up at around 04:00, as there was pelting rain with accompanying gales, so I adjusted the windows or closed them altogether. I don’t think I got out of bed until well past 10:00 that morning, which is pretty much unheard of for me.

There was still a yellow weather warning in effect throughout most of Tuscany, so it piddled down on and off until Sunday evening. Fortunately, Volterra’s nature also suits dismal weather.

Aaaannd it didn’t stop us stuffing our face!

food_2807

Zuppa alla Volterrana, pici with sausage and tomatoes, stewed boar and olives we had in Ristorante Etruria, and I forget what the last thing is but we had it in Pizzeria Ombra della Sera! 😉

Before we went back to the apartment we had a look at the Roman Ruins to check out the setup for the Arts Festival they’re currently having (nothing scheduled for Sundays), and to have a quick pint in the Irish bar there, called Quo Vadis… probably the only Irish bar in the world with that name!

We caught the sunset, though.

IMG_E3463

Sleep the second night was pretty much the same as the first, albeit a little better. Then up for a quicker than usual walk, and some brekkie.

That brings me pretty much up-to-date. Maybe some fan shopping today is in order, and now that we’ve moved the outdoor table back outdoors, we need a table for the telly. I’m also thinking of cooking up rigatoni with sausage and kale later on. Ciao!

A rocky start

Everything began beautifully. My brother picked us up, and dropped us off at the airport with plenty of time to spare. Despite there being quite a few people waiting, we managed to grab a bag & tag machine immediately, and with practically zero queue, ditch our bags to the mercies of the handlers in Dublin and Pisa.

My wife, Niamh, had to stop for cash, and afterwards my brain created an event here that didn’t actually happen – more on this later. We breezed through security – one of the aspects of air-travel I really detest.

Things started to go wrong after we’d ordered food at one of the bars. I’d had a couple of swigs from my cider, when I thought I’d smugly show Niamh that, yes, I had everything in order. But my mini-wallet wasn’t in my pocket. No fake-out. I got that feeling of panic… you know when your stomach drops, then rises and your bladder shrinks to the size of a golf-ball? We emptied my carry-on all over the table, thinking I had absent-mindedly thrown it in there, after we’d gone through security. There was no sign of it, though.

I was convinced that I had looked in my wallet in the airport when Niamh was getting cash out, to make sure I had a float of my own. I raced back downstairs, past all the shops and over to some security guys to explain my situation. I had three cards in there, plus about 150 Euros in cash. I didn’t care about the cash, my bank card (we have an account in Italy, so we’re ok for money) or my Health Insurance card. What was killing me was that my driver’s license was also in there… and I was supposed to be a named driver, so I could share the driving. I was feeling a total moron for having lost it.

Fair play to the lads in security, they searched high and low for it. I convinced them that I definitely had the wallet before security, as I remembered that I had taken it out at the ATM. Anyway, they didn’t find it, and so I raced back, pausing to stop at some shop tills to see if anyone had left it in. They were all cool too, but didn’t have it – they took my number in case it came up. People simply are brilliant, more often than not, aren’t they?

Anyway, we had to leave shortly, so I yummied down as much of my lunch as I could in 3 minutes, before departing for the gate.

The flight missed its departure window, and so left 30 minutes late, at 14:15. No worries, I thought, we can still make Volterra and have dinner there later this evening. I began to get worried again when the captain said they’d have to circle for 20 minutes, as the weather was too bad to land. We knew thunderstorms were on the way and were wondering if we’d missed them in Pisa. We hadn’t. We did land after that 20 minutes, and it was a very smooth landing, fair-play to the pilot. I don’t mind flying, but I do get a little antsy about landings sometimes.

We taxied, and waited for a few minutes. It looked dry out, if dismal. Then came another announcement – ground staff will not work in thunderstorm conditions, so we’d have to wait on-board until the weather got better. He turned the air-con up, so we wouldn’t suffocate. Only then, did the rain come down.

It was liked being papped in a carwash, with tumbling water blurring the view outside and lighting flashing through the clouds.

rain

The photo was taken by Niamh early on in the deluge, and doesn’t do the latter stages justice. After 50 minutes or so, we were allowed leave, and I got a free shower just running to the bus at the end of the stairs. I said to Niamh that I thought the arrivals area would be cataclysmic. The bus started up, and, no word of a lie, travelled all of 40 metres to the terminal stop where, laughing, we all got off and raced inside. I understand completely why they have to do that – not everyone is able-bodied or in the prime of their youth, but it was comical at the time.

Passport control was a breeze, and I thought I might have been wrong about how busy the rest of the terminal might be. I wasn’t. People had piled in, and we struggled up to the telly screen to see on which carousel our flight’s baggage would be arriving. But there was no movement, neither of screen nor carousel. There were occasional announcements that the baggage handling would begin when the storms subside. Still more people arrived into the terminal. One of the two vending machines was out of order, and I managed to get 2 of the last 3 bottles of water from the functioning one.

terminal

Feeling a little sorry for myself, I WhatsApp’d my brothers and had a bit of a rant at how things were progressing. I got a call from the brother who dropped us at the airport, shortly after to say that he had my wallet – I must have dropped it in the car on the way. He is due to come out to us for a few days at the beginning of September, so both Niamh and I were happy for Niamh to do the driving in August, and I in September! I can’t begin to describe the endorphine rush I got after that call! While I am writing this, I am still unable to banish the ‘memory’ of pulling out my wallet at the airport ATM and looking at the cash. Isn’t the brain an absolute fucker somtimes?

About 2 hours later, we saw a bunch of students we knew to be on our flight gather around carousel #3 and were collecting bags. I looked at the master screen, and it didn’t say, and the screen over the carousel didn’t indicate the flight either – yet those students knew. Neither of us had heard any announcement. But what the hell, our bags were finally coming out!

Once our bags were snatched, we dashed through customs, squeezed our way through the hilariously over-crowded arrivals area and out into some refreshing air. The car we picked up from Hertz 20 minutes later was a Lancia Ypsilon (we’re here for 9 weeks – our budget is limited!). I will be as nice as I can and say that it was a time-machine: just like driving was back in the early 90’s. Niamh sent the mail to Volterra’s Municipal Police to request that our ZTL & Parking resident’s permit be updated with the registration of our little Tardis. A town’s ‘ZTL’ (Zona Traffica Limita), is an area through which no traffic can pass, save for those with special permits. Each time you break a ZTL sign, that’s a 3-figure fine!

The winding journey to Volterra from the airport was in the dark, save for eruptions of lightning, which flickered across the sky. There were a couple of instances of forked-lightinging, and were I to do this all over again, I’d (remember my wallet!) have parked a GoPro on the dash to capture the journey. The forks were colossal!

We arrived in a partly fog-shrouded Volterra about 70 minutes later, and with 70 kilos of luggage, were reminded how unfit we are. We eventually arrived in our apartment at around 23:00, local time – exhausted, and only fit for our bed.

Of all places, why Volterra?

A dream of ours was to buy a place in Italy, preferably Tuscany, as we had visited it a couple of times and loved the place, the food and found the people to be among the friendliest (and we’ve been to a bunch of places in Italy!).

But where to even look? Google maps is your best friend when looking for bases to camp, especially if, like us, you wanted to live near some amenities, rather than in a field, miles away from anywhere. I can see why people go for the latter, but it’s not for us.

So I grabbed my PC and took into consideration our requirements:

Not too far from the coast (preferably on it)
In an old town, with lots of charm and history
Near amenities
Must have outdoor space attached to the property
Our budget 😉

So, I started looking mostly in Liguria, Le Marche, Tuscany, Puglia and Abruzzo. I honestly spent a few months zooming in and out, looking for populated coastal areas that had as many of our requirements as possible. I learned two things pretty quickly:

Most coastal towns in Italy do not have that medieval charm. This is because their coasts were raided frequently by pirates. Therefore, towns used to be built at least a little inland, preferebaly on hills, so the inhabitants could keep lookout for invaders.
We couldn’t afford decent-looking properties in coastal towns anyway!

Inland it was, so. More zooming and street-view, looking for a town that covered as much as we needed and could afford. The plus side of all of this seeking was that I was building up a catalogue of towns I wanted to visit when I eventually settled! Towards the end, really due to the availability of air transport from Ireland, we were down to Liguria or Tuscany. We went for the latter, as we felt that there was a bit more variety of things to do and see there.

Then, I stumbled across a town atop a butte, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, with beautiful streets, tons of restaurants, not too far from the coast, with plenty of other amenities.

We travelled there to view a few properties, and fell in love with the place, and as luck would have it, found a property with a terrace – not an easy find in the main shopping area, slap-bang in the middle of an old, walled town.

I then took a look at my list of towns we could visit from Volterra, and found that it is ridiculously central to a ton of other places in Tuscany!

Car journey times from Volterra, up to around 90 minutes – toll roads allowed. Click to enlarge

We couldn’t believe our luck, and still can’t. We found the place in April 2018, and finally closed the deal in mid-December. We will soon be on sabbatical, and are really looking forward to spending 9 weeks here!