Linda and Margaret's Italian Adventure: Things are even MORE lovely when the rain stops!

Ciao; it’s Wednesday already! (WHERE is the time going?!)

We had dinner last night in the hotel Bel Soggiorno’s dining room; table next to the window, but by the time they opened at 8, it was pitch black outside and raining! Fortunately for us, the heat has been turned on in the hotel, so we didn’t have to worry about freezing! We both started the meal with a glass of sparkling Vernaccia wine from the local area. It is nice and light, but a shade dryer than most of the prosecco’s we have been used to. For starters, Linda had a ricotta soufflé with fresh tomato coulis basis, with a thin strip of zucchini and a thin strip of carrot across the top. My starter was a timbale of potatoes with two layers of mushrooms, and then some wonderful truffle shavings in the cream sauce. I won that round! For mains, Linda won: she had artichoke tortelli (looked something like big tortellini) in a cream sauce; it was fantastic! I had ravioli stuffed with smoked cheese in an aubergine (egg plant) sauce; (good but not fabulous). No dessert after that, as we were stuffed! Back upstairs about 10 p.m. and to bed shortly thereafter. It sounded like it continued raining all night, and in the morning, we awoke to quite a bit of fog, especially in the valleys! The forecast called for rain all day today and into tonight, stopping tomorrow and hopefully clearing up!

We had breakfast in the dining room, and then bided our time until about 9:30 a.m. as we didn’t want to arrive in Volterra too early for shops and things to be open. Got there about 10:45 a.m. and it was SO surprising! As we drove east toward the coast, the rain stopped, and by the time we got to Volterra, there were plenty of patches of blue sky! We ended up with lots of sunshine and no more rain, which is terrific, as we didn’t really relish the thought of going into and out of places all day with umbrellas, cameras, bags, etc. So…Volterra; really a beautiful OLD Etruscan city, with the golden stone just glowing as the sun started to shine. We parked in our usual place, right beneath the Porto al’arch and headed into town. Wandered about a bit, as map didn’t make a great deal of sense, and finally stopped at the local tourist office to get an “official” one. We found the panoramic view of the Roman Amphitheatre and other buildings; just beautiful, especially when one considers that at some point in past history, the Volterrans used the amphitheatre as a garbage dump!

While we did NOT visit the Museo de Tortura…there are several here…I wanted Kevin and Jeff to know that there ARE some things they might want to see. Also a few shops with swords, knives and suits of armor just for fun! – might not get through security, tho’! ---Linda

Decided to visit the Etruscan Museum, which houses an amazing collection – we had never seen so many funerary urns anywhere! They occupied literally room after room!

From there, we decided to get some lunch, so stopped into a convenient pizza-by-the-slice place, and for 2E each, got terrific slices! Linda’s had tomato and arugula, and she said it was spicy; I had funghi on mine – how do they make the crust so thin and crispy at the same time??

We did a little bit of shopping on the way out of town; just picking up a few things. Got the car from the garage and headed back to San Gimignano. As it had turned out to be such a beautiful day, decided to continue with the original plan and head to Monteriggioni, stopping first at S.G. to pick up my sunglasses (who knew?), and change clothes from long-sleeves and turtle-neck to short-sleeves; it’s that lovely!

Linda from hotel room balcony!

Monteriggioni is a VERY tiny hilltop town, about 2 football fields in length, walled in completely, and about 20 km from Siena. It has one hotel, one really good restaurant (Il Pozzo, where I have eaten many times before!), a couple of mediocre café/gelato places, and a wine store or two. It now also houses several wonderful craft shops; some beautiful jewelry – had to get out of there before we did something RASH! We did taste a bit of Monteriggioni wine, and picked up a bottle of white, as we’re hoping to have a picnic tomorrow on our balcony!
Drove back to S.G. via Strove (a tiny town that we’ve eaten in before), arriving back here about 5 p.m. A long day, but a really terrific one – I’m just SO happy that the weather turned wonderful again! All of the vineyards have harvested their grapes, and the vines are turning a wonderful bright yellow. Trees in the area are turning both yellow and a stunning RED, just for us! We are very fortunate to have timed our trip so well – if only to avoid like the plague the comic convention heading for Lucca this week!