The Red O...Volterra Day

 

Word of the Day:  OH - as in "Oh, My"!

 

On our drive up to Volterra for the day, we came across this huge red O in the middle of nowhere.  So, we stopped for a picture.  I later did some Internet research and discovered it is an art piece by a local artist, Mario Staccioli.  He places his art to teach people the importance of taking in their surroundings. 

 

Volterra is a medieval hill town - here I am at the bottom of the steps.

 

 

And here is a picture of the over 300 steps you have to climb to get inside the city wall! I now know the meaning of hill towns. 

 

Volterra is known for many things, alabaster stone is one of them.  You can find almost anything made of alabaster down the many winding, tiny streets and ally ways of Volterra.  "New Moon", the second "Twilight" movie was filmed here - so we had to visit the Torture Museum to put ourselves in a little bit of a "frightened" mood.  However, the museum was filled with REAL artifacts - some dating back thousands of years - of how people used to be tortured or punished.  Can you guess what this torture device did?

Ewww!  People couldn't talk wearing this device - it was either to keep people quiet or to make them whisper confessions so the device could be removed.

 

We also visited an Etruscan Museum - where they had over 600 funeral urns that were carved with scenes from the person's life.  All of the urns were from the B.C time period.

 

I also got to see the original piece of artwork, the elongated boy - Ombra della Sera (Shadow of the Evening).

 

 

After a full day, it was time for a nice long lunch outside at a great restaurant.