I had mentioned to lots of people before we left the states that I planned on spending one full day doing nothing but sleeping, however, after 12 hours of sleep Chris and I felt refreshed enough to ask the front desk for some advice on where to go for our first day. A very nice woman with a pleasant british accent and a kind demeanor gave us the suggestion of visiting Volterra. Now, neither Chris or I know anything about all of these places, but we trusted her judgement and decided to head out to Volterra.
I was nervous to be back in the car again, so before we left we had some eggs, ham, and coffee and Chris watched a video about how to use a stick shift. Once back in the car again, the vehicle revved up and so did my anxiety, but once Chris started the car and started driving he stated "This is easy now" So we started off again on curving, hilly roads that often felt like you were on a roller coaster as you cruise along. We mostly stayed at a slow pace allowing all of the Italian drivers to pass us. I probably chewed 4 of my nausene tablets on our driving excursions so far. Partially because of the hills and partially because of my newly found fear of stalling or losing control of the car.
We had the Never Lost Device lead us to the Hospital in Volterra because Chris had seen a tip online that it wasn't easy to find parking so many people would park at the hospital and walk up to the village. We parked on a street close to the hospital and walked up a winding road into the village. The buildings were mostly made of brick and stone and the streets were uneven and occasionally caused me to trip a little with the sandals I was wearing. We wandered along taking pictures as we went. We found lots of little tourist shops that we stopped into. They had Italian leather shops and Alabastor shops where they sold everything made out of alabastor. My favorite thing that we found was a colored Alabastor light and Chris considered buying a mortar and pestol. We made it to the end of the little town and took pictures of the view of the Tuscan hill. After that we decided it was time to find some food. We found a restaurant that was listed as the best Restaurante in the area and we got a table. Now, keep in mind, this was at about 2pm in the afternoon and from what we have found, Italians eat their lunch at lunchtime and dinner at dinner time, so for us to come in at such a late hour of the afternoon, we were keeping one of the servers late. Chris ordered us a meat and cheese plate and then Chris ordered the duck and I ordered gluten free pasta with pesto and fresh celery. They also had delicious Gluten Free bread there.
When our meals came I as very hungry and took a big bite at what I thought would be delicious pasta, but the celery taste was so strong, it made it taste bitter. I ate about a quarter of it before I could no stand any more. Once we realized we were keeping our waiter past the time he was supposed leave, we quickly paid, tipped him well, and took the remainder of our bottle of wine to go.
On our way back to the car we stopped at a gelato shop and asked if anything was Sans Glutini. The girl behind the counter pointed at 2 flavors on the side that had signs on them saying
no milk and no gluten. So we ordered some, but it was disgusting. It was soy based and was pretty gross. Chris ate the majority of it and then we headed back towards the hotel. Near the hotel there is market in a small area called La Rosa. We decided to stop there to pick up the rest of the groceries that we needed. When we found it the shop said it was a pets market, so I was a bit confused, but apparently it is several things in one small area. So we stopped in and started grabbing vegetables, fruit and a few other misc things, like meat, cheese and wine. They had a small gluten free section there as well. I decided last minute that we needed to try some real gelato, so I grabbed some, well the first package I grabbed was also made of soy, so I grabbed a different package and made sure the first ingredient was Latte (Milk). IT was a chocolate/vanilla swirl. We took our things up to the counter and the woman behind the register grabbed all of our vegetables and started walking them back to where they belong without saying anything to us. Chris and I looked at eachother like, "Did we miss something?" After about 5 minutes she came back and had put tags on all the vegetables, and Chris and I were like "OOOOH" and Chris apologized to her in Italian. At least now we know.After we returned from the market, we put away our groceries and Chris made us pasta with red sauce and chicken and vegetables. It was okay, but I wasn't a huge fan of he sauce. After dinner we had some real gelato which was delicious and played some cards as well as read some of our post cards from the post card guestbook. I was a little disappointed that no one wrote us a drunken poem. After that we went to bed and slept well to move on to another day in Italy.
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