The Fortress Towns of Monteriggione and Volterra

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Fortress Towns-wandering the winding way to Monteriggione and Volterra

• Never sit in the back seat of a car in Tuscany if you’re “going for a drive”.
  
• The best restaurants are not found be looking them up in the Italian Yellow Pages. Just take a drive at sunset through the wild woods of the Tuscan hills and you’ll find, in the middle of no where, lights illuminating the way to a rustic villa, 20 cars lined up, and the smell of local cuisine, maybe wild boar and roasted potatoes, or home made ribollita and crusty bread, already winding it’s way to YOU.
  

Monteriggione So Saturday morning, after a pancake breakfast (made from a mix that she saves for me), Salima, Riccardo and I head out for the day. I take this opportunity to watch the Tuscan countryside pass in various shades of green, and mound after mound of hill after hill, some tall and rocky, others rolling smoothly from one to the next, almost feminine. Strong but purposefully understated. Tall, narrow, dark-green trees line dust-paved roads. In 45 minutes we find ourselves staring at a little-known small medieval town atop a hill, bound by the characteristic wall-high and protective. Monteriggione is tiny. We walk the circumference in less than 30 minutes, first having a snack at one of the two bars in the town piazza (one piazza, with the main church, what was the local well, near the main entrance or gate/door. Crows and pidgeons circle the towers, outlined by the ominous sky slowing dampening the mood. Black clouds kick the morning sun to the south and after our hour and half lounge at our table, with salami, bread, cheese and the house wine (which I have several glasses of-warm and smooth and just too darn good) settling in our bellies. It starts raining and we run out of the door, down the hill, wave good bye to the tiny medieval town, hop hurriedly in the car and decide where to next.

Volterra An Etruscan town, high upon a hill (much MUCH higher than the hill upon which was built Monteriggione) which takes 30 minutes to climb in twisting and turning roads. I wonder if the buses ahead have some sort of super-gravity device keeping their wheels firmly to the pavement.

Volterra reminds me of Siena, architecturally and the character of the streets, the people. Volterra, however, lacks a huge duomo and piazza where everyone congregates. Instead, it is gifted by a famous Etruscan museum and archeological park which includes a substantial amount of roman ruins. Although we don’t get to see this part of Volterra, we do take a walk and admire the Alabaster art which Volterra artists are famed for-a stone very difficult to work with, but when carved very thin becomes translucent like shell, with the white (or ochre or pale peach colored tints) veins glowing like wood grain. I am saddened that the day has gone to fast and the darkness of evening is dulling our sleeping selves (damn that wine) and we begin to head home. The same hills now lit from the side with a golden, though muted, light. Some hills, blessed by the break in the clouds, are given one last kiss before night.

And we travel back, tired but happy, down those roads, a devil of a ride it is, back to our Florence.

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