Volterra

The last day of our trip we got up, cooked breakfast again. And drove about 40 minutes to Volterra.

 Volterra is another walled city but it is up on a very high hill.  I understand that this is the town where one of the vampire movies was filmed.  It is also very famous for its Alabaster.  Lots of rock shops.

 Torch holders on the walls around the town piazza

 The town bank on one end of the piazza

 An interesting window

 Above a more interesting door

 Next to one of the churches we went in was a little chapel with this display showing the carts that were used to gather the dead.  Yes - "Bring out your dead.  Bring out your dead!"

 Here was a little gift shop all based upon Cinghiale - the Italian name for the wild boar that they hunt here.  Of course Cinghiale is also the name of a cycling club.

 Beautiful streets everywhere

 At the other end of town was this old roman ruin.  I read that this was just a garbage dump for hundreds of years until around 1950, the local mental hospital took it on as a project to excavate and unearth the old ruins.  It was great for the town and good therapy for the patients.

 As we were walking back toward the car we just missed the procession that was leaving the church on Palm Sunday.  Everyone had their olive branches that were freshly cut that morning from the local olive trees that are everywhere. The priest was singing into a mobile load speaker system.

 Another wonderful side street.

 We then drove around the town on the out side of the wall and found this other entrance.

 A view of the old castle

Looking north from the same spot is this beautiful valley.  

We then took off in the car for a 3.5 hour back to Milano.  We had a great trip.