Volterra

February 16, 2008

Yesterday was our Saturday trip to Volterra, a small town that’s directly west of Cortona but not quite on the coast (boohoo). It’s known for having the oldest archway in Italy (which Hitler was planning on blowing up, but then just decided to completely block it off), a large quantity of alabaster (which you can buy in every shape and form known to mankind, including alabaster fruit that looks real), a semi-in-ruins Roman theater, and a Etruscan museum. We left Cortona at 7:30 am…a little early, in my estimation. The trip was two and a half hours, though, so we all got to nap on the bus. The town was pretty cool looking - very medieval with a lot of stone walls and arches. The weather, though, was FREEZING. It didn’t begin to warm up until about three o’clock, when it started getting tolerable if you stood in the sun. Until then it was pretty miserable, even with tons of layers, a hat, and gloves. During the morning we visited two different museums – the Museo de Guarnacci and the Museo de Civico. The Museo de Guarnacci was a museum of Etruscan art - meaning tons and tons and TON of sarcophagus...or would that be sarcophagi? and ceramics. I could envision Gintaras ripping out his hair from sheer boredom. I thought it was interesting, though. I mean, most of this stuff has been around since before Christ…how can that not be cool to see? There were a lot of marble slabs with Latin carved into them and neat designs. The Museo de Civico had a lot of religious paintings…oh wait, hehe…MOST Renaissance artwork is religious. =p And I learned something really interesting… you know when you see a painting where the Madonna or the Christ is this sickly shade of green? Well, I guess I never really thought about it, but they’re not SUPPOSED to be that color. Apparently the top layer of paint has come off, so that’s what they look like now. Okay, I thought that was interesting.

After visiting the museums, we all wandered off to explore the town on our own. It was interesting, but not as interesting as it would have been if it were nice and warm. We tried to spend as much time as possible indoors, eating or stopping for coffee and tea. And I’ve officially learned my lesson about randomly choosing foods: I don’t know what kind of sandwich I ordered, but I swear I’m gonna learn the Italian word for anchovies. Because I am totally not that picky of an eater but they are truly disgusting. No matter what country you’re in.