Whenever I got to Volterra, as happy as I am to be in it, I’m also dead keen to get out of it too. Not for any qualitative reason, but just to explore new places. I tend to forget, therefore, why first-time guests are always keen to stay in the town rather than move about. Volterra alone will command your attention for 4-6 days, especially if you’re a thorough bugger. Admittedly less than that if you just want to see the highlights. She is also very beautiful, and all you would rather do is chill, then is no better town for that.

Anyway, my point here is that our guests wanted to hang about the town for another day, rather than go on an excursion, and so we obliged them. Niamh and I must have done very little of note in the middle of the day. I quite possibly sat in and played CyberPunk 2077 while the ladies went out shopping. Having said that, I did go start the 28th with a nice walk.

The sky was unbelievably clear and the light to shadow ratio on the rolling colline (hills) was as good as it gets. Such a clear view of the geothermal stacks in Larderello in that last pic. You could see as far as Corsica, and I was unsure if I could even make out snow on its mountains. I’d seen photos of that before, but wasn’t sure if it was snow on mountains or distant clouds.

I walked around as far as the steps at Docciola and nearly killed myself by walking up all nearly 200 of them. I needed the XBox to sort myself out after that (any excuse!).

For lunch we did something new, at least – and had a sandwich somewhere different. This time, it was Al Vicolino‘s turn, and it was quite yummy.

It was our guests’ last night, so we took them one of our favourite restaurants: La Vecchia Lira, who change up a lot of their menu, based on season. Apart from one moment on insensitivity from me, the night went pretty well! I too often think that folks have the same sense of humour I have, and that used to get me into trouble a lot more than it does these days – but I do have the occasional slip. Apologies again, Maire, if you’re reading this!

Thankfully the food was on point more than I was!

We went home, suitably stuffed. We most likely got soundly thrashed by the young lady at pool on the XBox and went to bed disgusted.

Next morning, and it was time to see our lovely guests off on an afternoon flight from Florence airport. That’s right: Florence. We’d never driven to, nor seen, Florence airport, so it would be an experience! However, first: to (quickly) show the ladies around Florence. We parked at our usual spot, and took the tram in. 10-12 minutes sees you into the central train station (Santa Maria Novella) and a 7-10 minute walk to the cathedral.

As much as we take the same route in Siena, it’s even more so. Usually, we fly in by tram, then it’s Duomo > Piazza della Republica > Piazza della Signoria > Ponte Vecchio > eat in the Oltrarno > a quick look at the Palazzo Piti > a quick explore of the lanes of the Oltrarno > gelato > back over the Santa Trinita Bridge > through the Piazza di Santa Maria Novella > tram > home. This was only slightly different. After we’d taken the ladies across to the quieter side of the Arno we had to have an early lunch, due to the ladies’ flight time. We broke our own rules by stopping at a restaurant with pictures galore of its food – it was one of the few places open – and had some pizza.

I seem to remember a lot of salt in the food. Ah well… you get what you pay for sometimes. We travelled the rest of the route and took the ladies to the airport.

You can see a video of this day, plus the day in Siena we had the previous day.

We had to negotiate one of the few tricker highway junctions in order to get to Florence airport. I couldn’t get over how tiny it was! We drove in, got our little parking ticket, said goodbye and had to validate on the way out. There seemed to be just one guy guarding the carpark. It’s so tiny. Anyhoo, we did so and took the tricky highway whorls out of the town, and (eventually) home.

I treated myself to a gelato from L’Isola del Gusto, and had a moment over a pet rock that was left behind by the younger of our two guests.

With the guests gone, and our appetite for more Italian food on the wane, I had the great idea of going to one of the Chinese/Japanese places in Cecina. We drove to the carpark near the train station, and walked to Sushi Queen. I checked Google, and by golly, it was open! Except it wasn’t. We walked up to it, and it looked open. People were busy moving furniture around and rushing between rooms. I walked up and asked them if they were open, and they replied no. ”But Google said you were,” is what I wanted to yell at him, while shaking him by the lapels. But I just walked out disgusted, Niamh following behind less disgusted. I was on a crusade and wrote a scathing review afterwards (I have since removed it). 

Here’s the thing restaurant owners: if you don’t have a website and have your times on Google, please update the bloody things when you’re not actually open. It could save people a round trip of disappointment if they travel to your place of business to find it shut. I was annoyed, as it’s a round trip of over 80km. 

It turns out that there is another Chinese/Japanese place about 100m away, so that sucked the anger out of me somewhat. So thank you, Sushi Giapponese Tokyo for being open! We ordered a fair bit of food. It wasn’t bad – especially the rice, dim sum and noodles, but as usual we still haven’t fully found our Chinese Shangri-La, so to speak, with the stir-fried dishes. But it was a different flavour profile, and enjoyable… and the staff were really nice.

We drove home, played each other in pool for some lesser championship and went to bed.

I hope you enjoyed this blog. Let me know what you think, or if you have any comments.