Chris & Kelly's Travel Adventures

Volterra is another hilltop (more like mountain top) walled city.  It has Etruscan roots dating before the 8th century B.C.  It is famous for its Alabaster.  I've read and tried to understand exactly what Alabaster is, but not sure I will explain this correctly.  Alabaster is a mineral or soft rock.  Primarily used for carving.  It is made up of 2 types of minerals: gypsum and calcite.  However, geologists only refer to it as a gypsum type.  Alabaster can range in color from snow white to a amber and is very translucent, it is also not nearly as heavy as marble.  Below is a picture of a globe made from Alabaster at a small shop we visited. 

Today while in Volterra, they were have an Italian Bianchina car show.   Sweet looking rides, if you want a very small sized car!

Afterwards we visited the main church in town, Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta.  As you know, we have visited many churches all over Italy.  Unlike the others it had 2 different distinguishing features: the pipe organ was behind the main altar, and instead of stained glass windows it had windows made of alabaster which gave the church an interior warm glow.  

We also made a visit to a palace within the main square that served as a power seat (hence the elaborate meeting room in the picture below).  Chris also climbed up the bell tower and said while the view was great that it had the narrowest set of stairs he has climbed in all of Italy.

Like many cities in Italy, layered civilizations exist leaving ruins behind as a clue to their time in power.  A prime example of this exists in Volterra as the Roman Ampitheater.  I imagine an entertainment event was pretty spectacular here in its day. 

Time to find lunch, and as usual we chose randomly...and were rewarded with outstanding food showcasing local cuisine.  We only had 2 courses as we were saving room for gelato at the end of our day!  We had pappardelle (a wide egg pasta) with porcini mushrooms and black truffles in a pecorino cheese sauce, and then grilled sausages covered in lardo and balsamic glaze over a salad and bed of mashed potatoes.  Kiwi-  you would have loved this dish!

Walking off lunch we headed to a park that contains the ruins of the Etruscan history of this city, did some local shopping and enjoyed some dark chocolate/caffe gelato while perched in front of some natural formations of alabaster.  The weather was mid 70's and partly cloudy...it only rained while we were having lunch under an outdoor umbrella- talk about luck!  So glad we made the time to visit Volterra, its great place to visit.