Wednesday 7th May
Silla to Livorno via Volterra, Italy
It rained a little in the night and we woke up to a chilly morning. We were in the mountains so I shouldn’t have been surprised that the temperature was as low as 13°. But I was.
We slowly packed up, there wasn’t a reason to rush and set off towards Livorno. On the way we decided to stop and take a walk around Volterra, a hilltop medieval town near San Gimignano, a place we visited last year.
Funnily enough, we spotted San Gimignano from the road, its hard not to miss it, sitting atop its hill with its Unesco listed towers for all to see.
Our route was very windy which Parker shrugged off, he’s now an old hand at those 
.
Part of the journey was through a tunnel, sunny when we entered but oh so eerie on our exit. We had seen low clouds on the hills as we approached and when we came out, we were actually in those clouds! Couldn’t see in front or behind so just followed what we thought was the road 
.
It was all good, one minute driving blind, the next as clear as a whistle. The temperature went up and down as well.
Arriving at a camper parking spot at one of the entrances to the old town of Volterra, we paid for the night, packed a couple of brollies – as the weather wasn’t sure what it was doing – and set out to climb the 235 steps.
They were quite brutal as the riser was really low, so I took them 2 at a time, much better for my big clodhoppers.
The first thing we noticed was that traffic was permitted through the narrow streets, we were constantly moving out of the way. Rather annoying as it meant you couldn’t take a relaxing view of the town.
Some parts were pedestrian only, thank goodness and we were able to have a good amble.
Volterra is a walled city and has two fortresses at one end, which are linked by a stone wall. It is currently used as a medium security prison. Its very impressive from the outside but almost impossible to get a great picture.
The buildings are mostly red brick/sandstone , they are quite imposing, almost hard faced buildings, if you know what I mean, so it wasnt easy finding pretty things to please the eye.
It didn’t help that the weather was chilly with sporadic rain, so most bars and cafés were only hosting indoors. This didn’t provide a warm atmosphere in the lanes sadly. Though we could see that during the summer it would be quite different.
They have some Etruscan ruins and a museum dedicated to them, and also a very good roman amphitheatre and forum, which you can see from the city walls above.
The views over the Tuscan hills are breathtaking, something I’m afraid our camera lens can’t quite capture, but very pleasing to the eye.
It started to rain as we returned to the van, so we decided to head closer to Livorno instead of staying in the car park.
It was another squirly whirly ride to Livorno down through the vineyards with cypress tree lined driveways. We even spotted some plane trees, reminiscent of roman times.
We are camped just on the outskirts of Livorno, in the carpark of a Pizza restaurant. You can stay here for the night by permission of the restaurant owner.
Of course, we had to have a pizza, our first whilst being in Italy. 2 pizzas, a bottle of house red, bottle of water, pannacotta and limoncello tart, all for the amazing price of €30! Wow.
There are another 2 couples in vans here who were also having pizza. They are from Germany and heading to Sardinia. During our conversation they asked about our tops which have the Camino Conch Shell logo on. Turns out they have done the Camino 4 times on bikes. They don’t like the thought of walking it, but I’m sure if they couldn’t ride they would contemplate it.
We’ve had a fab last day in Italy for a few weeks and are looking forward to being on french soil for a while. The Germans have been to Corsica and said it’s expensive, which, to be honest we were expecting, so no surprises there.
We are very much looking forward to exploring the 168 or so miles of coastline.
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