After a splendid Sunday-night dinner under the Tuscan stars, Michael and I woke up early-ish on Monday and drove to Volterra, home to some very, very old Etruscan stuff and an ancient Roman amphitheatre. And amazing views, of course.
Cool story about this very old Etruscan arch (one of only two in existence): The Nazis wanted to blow it up, in order to slow the Allied advance, but the locals stayed up all night digging up the stones on the road I'm standing on above and used those stones to block the arch, convincing the bad guys that there was no need to blow it up. And now it's back to normal. And it's cool.
That's Michael, taking a break from our self-guided walking tour down Volterra's 'main drag', which is lined with alabaster showrooms and restaurants. At the end of our walk, we found this:
It seems the Volterrans loved their Etruscan arch much more than their ancient Roman ruins. Apparently, this amphitheatre (and, later, baths) was the site of Volterra's trash dump, and it was hidden for years and years and years, until the 1950s. Can you imagine?
After our lovely day in Volterra, we headed back to Panzano for dinner and a special, private wine-tasting evening with friends of our hosts (they have great friends), who own a vineyard in the neighboring village of La Piazza. These pics tell that story. We came home with a few beautiful bottles of Chianti Classico and some olive oil...
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