Jenny's Travel Diary: Volterra

After leaving Pisa, we continued down to Volterra. Once we arrived, which was at about 4pm, we decided to first find somewhere to stay for the night. We ended up finding somewhere through TripAdvisor which had a very misleading entry. Here is my review:

"We found this via trip advisor when we found ourselves in the area. The reviews their rated this hotel well, but that was not our opinion. The pictures on trip advisor make it look like this hotel in on the top of the hill with great views. It isn't. It is right down the bottom, with no views, and located on a busy road. Our room was next to that road. The site said it was 10 minutes drive from Volterra, it wasn't - it was twenty minutes drive. The whole place feels like the 70s, and the bathroom in particular needed updating. The shower had mould on the grouting, and the tiles were a horrible dusty pink. Add that to the green bathroom door with doorframe in a different green and it is not a good effect. The restaurant looked nice, but the meal was very average. I had papadelle with wilk boar, which was a meat ragout on the pasta, but it contained lots of little bit of bone. Quite offputting. There is no phone coverage, and no wifi. That might not matter to some people, but it was a problem for us."

Next morning we went back up to look at Volterra. It was another wonderful medieval, stone built, hill town surrounded by medieval walls. It also had the ruins of a Roman theatre just outside the town walls. There was an entrance fee, but it could easily be seen through the fence without having to pay anything.

Roman Theatre just outside Volterra's walls

One of the gates, known as the Etruscan Arch, was built in the 4th century BC and is said to be the only surviving round arch dating back to Etruscan times.