Day 8: San Gimignano, more Volterra

This morning we were surprised by a big breakfast buffet at our hotel. We didn't realize breakfast was included and it was a nice change from what had become our norm, a croissant (which is not to say that someone didn't still have one). 

After breakfast we drove up the hill to Volterra to park and do laundry. We were among many locals washing and drying our clothes in the laundromat. 

Afterward we resumed sightseeing by driving through Tuscany with the top down on our convertible toward San Gimignano, another small hill town about thirty minutes from Volterra. San Gimignano used to have about seventy house towers throughout its center. These were fortifications to which a family would retreat when vandals came to pillage a city. Fourteen of the towers remain today and they were wonderful to see. The town itself is also very nice, and we had a delicious lunch on a quiet square outside a church.


The center of San Gimignano


John's salad with prosciutto


Adam's gnocchi with wild boar

When we finished there wasn't much more to do in the town and we wanted to be back to Volterra in time to take a walking tour. The walking tour was very informative. One thing we learned is that in addition to a Roman theater and Roman baths, they have also just three years ago discovered a huge Roman amphitheatre in town. They estimate it might hold as many as 8000 people and it's still buried today. We were on the trip with a family that had a baby that looked like an old man. We couldn't resist taking a photo.


Volterra from our guided tour


Baby who looks like old man

Tomorrow we head back to Florence to return the car and take a train to Bologna. Just two places left on this year's vacation. Wow!


John fits in the trunk of the Fiat!

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