Bike Ride to Volterra (Part II)

I reached Volterra after 7PM. By now, half of the place was in shadows, and nature’s chiaroscuro heightened the dramatic look of the place. Volterra’s network of narrow cobbled alleys was fittingly dark and mysterious. If it weren’t for the stylishly garbed, anachronistic tourists crowding the trendy boutiques and the ubiquitous alabaster shops that lined the medieval alleys, I would have expected to bump into a hooded figure in brown sackcloth habit and sandals, furtive eyes and all, and darting from one alley to another. Or trip over the dead body of a wealthy merchant, dagger still firmly planted on his back, with a terrified look frozen on his ashen face.

(Above: Remains of an Etruscan wall on the north side;
as Velathri, the town was one of the largest Etruscan settlements)

Volterra Through the Ages

Volterra had been a major settlement from at least the time of Etruria, the ancient state in the area that what is present-day Tuscany and Umbria. The Etruscans erected a defensive wall in 4BC seven kilometers long to protect Velathri’s (as the place was then called) fertile land against a prolonged siege. The Romans subdued the Etruscans around 3BC and Velathri (renamed Volaterrae) passed under Roman rule. The place prospered in the middle ages and its medieval quarters grew along with its population. Like much of Tuscany, Volterra was the scene of many terrible sieges and sackings that stemmed from regional and familial conflicts of the late middle ages. Volterra, too, was engulfed in the long-running dispute between the Guelfs and the Ghibellines (two socio-political factions that came to Italy from the quarreling German houses of the Welf and the Waiblingen), a dispute that, among other things, resulted in the banishment of Dante Alighieri from his native Firenze.

The succeeding centuries saw Volterra struggle to maintain its independence against nearby expansionist city-states like Firenze, Pisa and Siena. After a violent 14^th century marked by increasingly bitter family feuds for control of its territory, Volterra succumbed to Firenze in 1472 and was shortly thereafter sacked by Lorenzo di Medici in his war…Volterra’s struggle for independence (which was periodically won and lost) continued until the city became part of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.

Today, Volterra is known as an important center for Etruscan history and the alabaster industry. Alabaster (hydrated calcium sulphate) had been mined since Etruscan times and its craft remains an important part of Volterra’s economy to this day.

(Above: Volterra is a third the size of what it used to be due to the
instability of its terrain. The town is built on top of a basin made of
sandstone and clay. Landslips occur as a result of solid sandstone weighing
down on clay. Volterra's famous eroded cliffs, le Balze, had swallowed
up some of the old town walls.)

I did a quick lookaround, but did not really have much time to dawdle as evening had arrived, and I estimated that there was less than one hour of daylight left for me to cover the unfamiliar 30-plus kilometers between Volterra and San Gimignano.

I took a road that hooked up with the N439 in Montaperti and enjoyed a very quick, winding, 7-kilometer descent on this perfectly banked and nicely paved road down to the next junction towards Vicarello. Che strada bellissima! This section of the N439 was the kind of road (and descent) that cyclists live for—lined with trees, with little traffic, a smooth surface, and with breath-taking views. On a couple of straightaways I managed to look over my right shoulder and see Volterra contentedly sitting on its high plateau, by all appearances very stable, and taking in the last of the day’s amber rays,. I wondered how many sunrises and sunsets Volterra had witnessed throughout the course of several centuries’ existence, or how many ebbing and flowing of Etruscan and Tuscan affairs and turning of fortune’s wheel to which the place had borne witness. I thought about the cataclysmic impact of the Great Plague and how it must have altered the Volterrans’ views on fate and religion. These thoughts to which I have a tendency to indulge were quickly brushed aside as the road started curving again, and concentration took over from wistful musings.

I turned right at the next junction and rode through a very serene stretch of road. There were a couple of houses in Vicarello (I’m assuming it was Vicarello based on my map, though the "village" was not signposted) and one very vocal dog (Query: whether a Tuscan dog barks with an Italian accent that, say, an English dog would find foreign sounding?) The road turned rolling. In fact, I would say Tuscan roads are the quintessential rollers. Save for the exceptional flats and steep approaches to hilltop settlements, most of its roads undulate between 50-150 feet, moderately graded, with just enough out-of-the-saddle riding to break the monotony. I suppose this should have been obvious to me, given the number of guiding outfits that operate here promising "enjoyable" cycling.

Soon the houses and the vineyards disappeared and I entered the lovely Castelvecchio natural reserve. Here the grades were a bit steeper, the climbs longer. One stretch stood out in particular: a sustained climb of about 8% from Montignoso to il Castagno and through to the next intersection. By this time, the sun had set and the only natural light left was the day’s afterglow. I was 7 kilometers from San Gimignano. Fortunately I had reached the familiar junction from where I had earlier turned for Volterra. I also remembered on the ride out that this was the crest of a long climb. Therefore, from this point until the start of the climb to San Gimignano, I expected the riding to be either on a fast descent or a gradual downhill. As it was, I covered six of the seven kilometers quite quickly. Still, darkness overtook me as I started the steep, tough, one-kilometer pull up the town. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, this approach to San Gimignano (elevation 324 meters) would be the easiest of the four ride-finishing approaches I would do on this trip, primarily because this one started already partway up. With a final burst of effort, I reached the city’s southern gate. I was pleasantly surprised when I got inside San Gimignano’s city walls and noticed that the swarm of tourists that earlier made the narrow streets claustrophobic had gone for the day, leaving only a few dozen overnighters now lazily having dinner, drinking coffee, or aimlessly wandering. It was past 9PM. I carried my bike upstairs and took a quick shower and hurried for dinner.