Blog #16 – The Tuscan Hill Towns of San Gimignano and Volterra

Sunday, October 3rd turned out to be a half-day of rest when we slept in on our first morning in Tuscany.  However, restlessness to explore the area got us into our car and on the road to visit two hill towns that were within an hour and a half drive – San Gimignano and Volterra.



Sandy waves from the well in the middle of the Piazza della Cisterna in San Gimignano, which has been the centre of the town since the 9th century.

There are dozens of hill towns scattered throughout Tuscany with ancient fortifications dating back to Etruscan times with Roman and medieval peoples building over top of the previous generations when the old buildings crumbled or were destroyed in wars, fires and earthquakes.  Each town has its own unique history and interesting sites, but it is impossible to visit them all.  One thing that they all seem to have in common is that the great Tuscan city-states of Florence and Siena continually fought for control of these towns and they often switched hands.

Some of the towers of San Gimignano.

San Gimignano, besides being a very difficult Italian name for an Anglophone to pronounce, is well known for its dozens of towers, 14 of which are still standing more or less intact.  As I said in the Lucca blog, these towers were built by the noble families to protect themselves from their rivals living within the same city.  The hill towns also require considerable walking up steep roads since you cannot drive into the old towns and have to park outside, usually in a parking lot lower on down the hill.

A typical flight of steps leading into a Tuscan hill town, San Gimignano in this case.



Notice the slope of the ground in the background, which is typical in the Tuscan hill towns.

 

As we were driving out of San Gimignano on our way to Volterra, we passed a winery with a sign that said "OPEN" in English.  We were interested in a winery tour so we stopped in.  However, for most wineries in Tuscany, you need to make an appointment for a tour and the next tour at this winery was fully booked.  We were however able to participate in some wine tasting where we got to sample six different types of wine.  Not being wine connoisseurs, it was difficult to tell the difference between these fine wines, so we just nodded and agreed with the commentary of the lady who was serving and describing the different wines.  We did feel a little obligated to buy something, so we picked the wine we liked best and bought a bottle of it along with a bottle of olive oil that Sandy used to make our Tuscan dinners with.

The two bottles of wine that we brought back to Canada and one bottle of Coca-Cola Light (European version of Diet Coke) with an interesting bottle design.  The wine on the left is a 2004 Brunello di Montalcino produced by Tenute Niccolai that we bought at the winery just outside San Gimignano for €22 ($32).  Montalcino is located about 60 Km to the south-east of where we bought this wine.  The second bottle of wine is a 2003 Nobile de Montepulciano produced by Apostoli €18 ($26), which we bought in the town of Montepulciano on our last day in Tuscany. 

Volterra gained recent notoriety for being the site where they filmed the immensely popular Vampire movie, New Moon.  We arrived quite late in the day around 6:00 pm and after getting information from the Tourist Centre, we decided to see one of the museums.  The choices were the Torture Museum or the Etruscan Museum and they both closed at 7:00 pm.  By the time we made it to the museum doors (they were located close to each other) there was only time to visit one of the museums.  The vote was a tie on which one to see – so needless to say, we went to the Etruscan Museum, which was indeed very interesting.

The examples of the many Alabaster funerary urns in the Etruscan Museum in Volterra from the 2nd and 1st century BC.  This museum houses the largest collection of such urns in the world.  The Etruscans cremated their dead and placed the ashes in these urns.

Other types of urns in the Etruscan Museum.

Volterra is very well known for its alabaster and the items that the local craftsmen make.  We purchased a few souvenirs and then headed home on a windy narrow road in the dark.



Sandy with Volterra in the background.





We came across these art students in San Gimignano who were all sketching the same scene.







This is the scene the art students were sketching.





A giant chess game in Volterra.



A residential area of San Gimignano.





The Tuscan countryside seen from San Gimignano.