After a day in Florence and no bike riding, Jim was itching to get a workout in the next morning so went out for a long ride. A little too long for my taste so Jim was forced to endure an afternoon with an angry pregnant woman. I wanted to see San Gimignano as well as Volterra but we didn’t get to Volterra until 4:00 so it was going to be another one town day.
Volterra is a walled city with a large fortress towering over the city. I was hoping to tour the fortress until I found out that it was actually now a state prison.
We stumbled across the palace of an Alabaster businessman and decided to take a tour. The owner made his fortunes in South America and Asia and actually ended up being the emir of Nepal. The palace had about 9 rooms open for viewing and the tour included a tasting of regional wine with some cheese and salami. We were surprised that Rick made no mention of the palace because both Jim and I really enjoyed it and found it a worthwhile stop.
We next walked up to the Fortress and the park nearby. The archaeological park with Etruscan ruins was already closed as was the Duomo. We did get to poke our heads in just as it was closing and it didn’t look like we were missing too much.
Our next sight was the Porto all’Arco which was a 4th century Etruscan city gate made of volcanic tufa rocks. Apparently Nazi forces were going to blow it up to slow the Allied approach but the citizens of the city pulled up all of the rocks leading up to the gate and used them to block the gate.
We decided to give Rick another chance on the fine dining recommendations and went to Restaurante Enotec del Duca. It didn’t open until 7:30 so we had to kill about 40 minutes. We got a second gelato of the day and wandered on the town’s main drag.
Unfortunately the meal was disappointing. The best part about the meal was our waiter who was very nice and gave us a free plate when he found out that I was pregnant. It was also pretty entertaining to watch the waiter kill a fly on a large hunk of cured ham just as Jim finished his portion. I'm guessing Italian health codes aren't as strict as they are in the U.S.
We decided to skip dessert and go for another gelato. We enjoyed our gelato sitting on the town wall watching a great sunset.
Pienza
On our last day in Tuscany, we decided to check out a market to see how it would compare to the markets in Provence. We decided to go to Pienza. Pienza is a very small town but was one of our favorites.
We walked along the ridge of town to get from our parking spot to the old section of the town. Along the way, we realized that there was a running race going on. It was mostly older men in the race. I have the feeling that Italian women don’t do too much working out.
We stopped for a coffee and gelato before searching for the market. We were having more trouble finding the market than we anticipated so stopped in the TI office and got directions for the market. We followed the directions to an empty square. We were at a loss as to why the TI office would give us directions to the market but would fail to tell us that there wasn't a market that day. Italian logic.
After the market flop, we went to the main piazza – Piazza Pio II which was surrounded by the city hall, Duomo and the Palazzo Piccolomini. We bought tickets to tour the palazzo. The next English tour wasn’t for 30 minutes so we took that time to tour the rest of the town and the Palazzo gardens.
The palazzo was the home of Pius II (who became pope) and the Piccolomini family. The tour is only of 6 rooms but they are well preserved with all of the original 15th century furnishings. The outside of the Palazzo was surprisingly nothing special but the interior was beautiful. The crest of the Piccolomini family was a cross with five half moons signifying the 5 religious crusades they helped fund. We had seen this same crest in the Siena Duomo.
After the tour we decided to go back to a restaurant we had stumbled across on our quest for the market. The restaurant had a terrace with an amazing view. It was by far the best meal we had during the entire trip. The restaurant was called La Terrazza del Chiostro (www.laterrazzadelchiostro.it) and was also a hotel.
Jim ordered shrimp in a chickpea puree to start and I got the stuffed squid. For the main course, I ordered the black pasta with clams in a pumpkin sauce and Jim got a steak. Since the meal up to that point had been so good, Jim decided to get a desert. He ordered a molten chocolate cake with wild strawberry sauce. Although I said that I was full and would only have a bite of whatever he ordered, it was so good that I proceeded to eat half of it. Ok, maybe more than half of it. I am pregnant after all.
After our relaxing two hour lunch, we headed back to Tenuta di Lupinari so that I could hang out by the pool and Jim could go for a ride. It was the hottest day of our trip so I figured that I’d get to do some swimming.
Hanging out by the pool was incredibly relaxing. It was 4:00 so the sun wasn’t too hot and the sun loungers weren’t like any I’d ever seen before. They had a reclining shield that you could use to block the sun from your face which is much better than my usual technique of suffocating underneath my coverup or towel.
It was a great week and we were both sad to leave our little Tuscan apartment the next morning. Thankfully we’ll be back in Italy at the end of September for a week in the Amalfi Coast so it was more of a “see you later” farewell rather than a “goodbye”.
No comments:
Post a Comment