Head West

One of the reasons for this trip was to visit some fo the hill towns we have been to in the summers seasons past, as to get a better understanding of what they are like without the thousands of tourists.

Today we visited San Gimingano which we have been to before and also added a new town Volterra.

We initially noticed a difference in the parking lots, it was easy to get a park outside the walls of San Gimingano, then when we passed through the gate, found the streets much less crowded.

We spent some time passing throug the San Gimingano Duomo and its Museum of holy art, followed by some lunch at a cafe.

 

After lunch it was time for Gelato. Even when it is 8 degrees outside, we were still able to have this magnificent italian delacacy and they were boasting a sign that claimed "best ice-cream in the world". Who were we to argue? I had Lemon and Strawberry and Katie had Pistachio and Vanilla. It was delicious.

A further 45 minutes from San Gimingano is Volterra, a town we had never been to before but as I had read so much about it and the Etruscan history in this area, we decided it was worth the push to see the place.

The town of Volterra was much nicer than we initially expected and after touring the Etruscan Museum, we then made some purchases of items made with the local Alabasta stone.

As night was then starting to fall we made the (almost) two hour drive back to Cortona and had a lovely meal at our favourite resrurant La Grotta.

 It was a very full day and quite tiring, hence the short write up.

KFB16592 SFB15909