Volterra

March 21, 2010

Day Trip to Volterra

Victoria, Sera, Ali and I decided to put our massive amounts of work aside for the day and head to the hill-top town of Volterra for the day. After a short hour-ish train ride, one large bus to a deserted lot, and one tiny bus up to the town we finally made it. Like all Italian cities, every street was cobble stoned and uphill. I’m always amazed by the amount of uphill streets you can find in one Italian town. Unknown to us before out arrival Volterra is known for its alabaster and is therefore sold in about every other store. I do not think I have ever seen so many stone products in one place, but if you are in the market for a stone sweater I know the perfect place for you. Also unknown to us was that there was a truffle festival in the main Piazza- which the smell of them could knock you over they were so strong - and another food festival in another part of the town which had very delicious cheeses and olives. Needless to say it was a very good day to come.

In the town itself, there is a old roman theatre ruins, which are amazingly intact. This was the first one that I have seen with the columns still standing on top of one another which I thought was really incredible that after all this time they are still perfectly balanced on one another. It makes you think about how amazing they must have been when fully intact. The Duomo in Volterra is about .0009 times the size of here in Florence but still very pretty, and so different. One of my favorite things in the town however was that in about every windowsill there were flowers. Each sill squeezed in between the shutters were potted flowers of every kind and color.

Two of the best things of the day had to have been at the end. While we were exploring a park that we found, and naturally swinging on the dinosaur shaped playground equipment we started to hear drumming. Normally this would seem weird, but we were in Italy so it just kinda seemed routine. While trying to find the source of the intensive drumming, we also found the seemingly only downhill street in town. Here we encountered an Italian family of a mom, dad, aunt and uncle also trying to place the drumming. While skipping down the hill (how little kids always manage to run, jump, skip and hop down very steep things without tripping and breaking every bone in their body is still beyond me) the little boy ahead of us started picking flowers from in between the cobble stones. First he turns to his mom and gives here one, then continues to pick some more flowers. He then turns to me and hands me a tinnnny little daisy like flower and says “here, for you” (but in Italian) and continues to skip away. He returns one minute later to tell me to make sure not the throw it away, to which I assure him that I will not. It is still in my wallet.

 

Finally the Italian family, and the four of us find the source of the drumming, a renaissance parade, of course! It was complete with a full orchestra, matching outfits and flag throwers. They continued to put on a show in the main piazza with synchronized flag throwing, flag juggling, and music to match. It was the perfect ending to a pretty wonderful day. 

Echo from the past

February 5, 2010

Today we had a visit to the archeological park in Siracusa. Like the many others the site was huge. At one point the entire site had a stone roof, which has since fallen down and the site had been taken over by trees and greenery. There is a huge cave-like alcove (right) that once entered only reverberates one strong echo, which is highly unusual, which might add to the strong acoustics to the theatre (left) that is situated directly above it. On the other side of the site there is an ampatheatre (below) that reflects somewhat like the inside of the Coliseum with its oval structure (it does not have the walls like the Coliseum but just the same basic ground level), and was perhaps used for some of the same purposes.

After exploring the archeological site we were free to wander around Siracusa for a few hours. We went into the duomo (right), which may be one of the most beautiful churches I have ever seen. It was built on the site of a roman temple, which had been destroyed during a earthquake. When building the duomo, the architect used the columns of the ancient temple, which were the only things that reminded and incorporated them into the walls and structure of the building.

Later in the afternoon after exploring the city for a while, we departed again for another nearby barocco town called Noto. The town itself was very small and everything seemed to be on one main street. The main cathedral (left) had been rebuilt sometime back because the original had been destroyed in an earthquake (apparently there are a lot of those here, I had no idea).  While the cathedral itself was still beautiful you didn’t get that overwhelming sense that it had been there for centuries (granted it hadn’t) and it seemed a little out of place in a town that you knew that everything else had been there since its founding. We headed back to Siracusa and had our last dinner all together later that night. Everyone was in a bittersweet mood, everyone loving the week that we had had so far and sad that it would have to come to a close the following day. 

Sacred Sites Starting with S

February 3, 2010

Today we headed out from Palermo for a final destination of Argrigento. Before we made it there however we stopped first at Segesta. At Segresta we explored the roman theatre and temple ruins. The site was flooded with sunlight and electric yellow flowers. I was amazed at how well preserved everything was throughout the entire site after so many thousands of years, exposed to every sort of weather. Walking around places like always makes me amazed at the things people were able to accomplish so many thousands of years ago. It always makes me amazed that they are still around today, and for the most part well preserved. I always wonder what people throughout the centuries must have thought about them, and what possessed them to keep it around. (don’t get me wrong I’m pretty happy that they did).  At the site there two temple ruins and one theatre ruin spread out over what seemed like acres of land (first and smaller temple = top left hand photo, theatre = top right photo, larger, second temple bottom left photo). Surrounding each archeological ruin were green cascading mountains, and trees as far as the eye could see. We even encountered a large flock of sheep grazing right next to the larger of the two temples. When we got to the theatre, we decided to test out the flawless acoustics by singing Spice Girls “Wannabe” together. I have a feeling it was not like anything that used to be san or preformed when the theatre was originally built. 

 

After wandering around for a while we headed out for yet another ruin site at Selinunte.  Here too was an archeological ruin site with a large temple, which was being restored while we were there, surrounded by ruins of smaller buildings and homes. Plants and wildlife mostly overran the site but the overall plan of the site was still apparent and was interesting to see the design of the huge site. This site unlike the previous overlooked the beach, and with much effort and climbing we ventured down to the sand for a while. After frolicking in the sun at on the beach for a while we headed out from Selinute for out hotel in Agrigento, a tinny little beach town.