Two Hill Towns and Two Rules

Hill Town #1:  San Gimignano  (SAN Jim-KNEE-an-yo, yo.)

Getting there was half the fun because they don’t call ’em “hill towns” for nothin’…and Italians drive (mostly red) Fiats.   The countryside is lovely with patchwork fields of grapes and olives punctuated by stone villas and geraniums bursting with color from gigantic stone pots.  Winding through this loveliness are one-lane roads sans shoulders, and we are driving in a VW van (manual transmission, of course) at speeds below the posted 40 or 60 k/hour.  (Emphasis on “winding”, and let’s not forget the tour buses going the opposite way, or the policeman on his cell phone driving right towards us.)

Parking there is half of the other half of the fun because all parking lots are made for Fiats but thankfully we have not as yet damaged the VW.  (Thanks for driving, Dave…thanks for navigating, Jim…thanks for directing the parking, Tim.)

San Gimignano is a clean, beautiful, walled city with plenty of shops and “the world’s best gelato”.  Indeed, today’s new flavors of pomegranate and salted caramel were superb and we were completely satisfied even though the gelato shop recommended in a certain author’s tour guide was not that one but the one on the other side of the piazza.  (We also understand that San Gimignano is Megan Marshal’s favorite town!  Right, Megan?)

Hill town #2:  Volterra  (vol-TER-ra, yo).  Volterra is not the birth-place of Voltaire, since he was French and we are in Italy, but hey.  They sound sort of the same.

Volterra is more isolated and therefore haw fewer tourists than San Gimignano; is located way, way up in the hills;  and  — wouldyoubelieveit — is famous for Etruscan ruins.  Ruins, ruins, ruins:  they are everywhere, folks.  Also a walled city, Volterra has a calm air about it.

Pretty, yes?  Just a few minutes after I took this picture, the weather changed and we took flight for the van to escape lightning and impending rain.

But first, we found the famous Etruscan arch.  Here it is:

If you look carefully above Anna and Jane’s heads, you can see the remains of other heads. The one on the left is — according to our touring history teacher — of a Greek dude and you can just about make out his face if you study it.

Anna and I looked closely.  “See, he’s looking to his left which is typical of classical Greek busts, and you can almost see his hairline,” explained Dave.

We looked more closely.  “Ummm,” muttered Anna under her breath, “you could tell me it was a horse and I’d say ‘sure…””.  Because we still could not make out the face, Jim showed us tonight what the guy would look like if he hadn’t left his face outside for the past 2000 years:

See?  Greek bust, facing left.

So, there you have our Two Towns of the day, San Gimignano and Volterra.   As for the Two Rules, many of you know about them already and could recite them in your sleep.  Just in case you need a review, though, this is how we are entertained after a long day of sightseeing in picturesque Tuscany:

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Jane, Anna and I think the guys need some new material.  What do you think?