0377 Rome to Volterra

9th Oct 2015

A short day with an interesting destination

I was still not feeling 100% when I woke up, or even 80%, but I was feeling a lot better than I had yesterday.  I managed to eat just a little breakfast, and then we slowly packed up the car – Always takes longer after a few days in one place because so much stuff has been taken out, and has to be put back in its place before we can head out !  Anyway, eventually we got everything in, said our farewells to Gabriella and Willy, and set off through the narrow streets of Rocca Priora, trying to find the way out and around Rome.  We were heading NW, and as we were on the SE side of Rome, we had to get all the way round the city before we could get going.

It was actually a lovely sunny morning and as we dropped down out of the hills outside Rome we had some wonderful views across the countryside.  There are the endless hill top towns that one sees along the way, but other than that, there really wasn’t a lot to see.  We stayed on the B roads all day, but it really wasn’t very exciting – And I wasn’t feeling too well either, so it didn’t end up as much of a sightseeing day.

Then at about 4 pm, as we wound our way through the Tuscan hills, we were surprised to see an oil rig at work.  Then we came over a hill and found some cooling towers belching steam – And over the hill, more cooling towers.  It all seemed very incongruous, but with all the electrical power lines leading off into the hills, it was obviously a power generation plant – But from what source ?  I found out later that this area around Pomarance is not only a primary source of Thermal Energy in Italy, but also in the world, and Italy is also a world leader in this form of renewable energy.  Steam from wells up to 5000 metres deep is pumped along insulated pipelines to a plant where it powers turbines to produce electricity, before being cooled in the condensation towers, and eventually being partially pumped back down into the wells to be reheated and re-used. Amazing what you find when you really do not know what is out there !!

We wandered on through the pale soils of the Tuscan hills – We were not far from places like San Gimignano and Siena, which we have visited previously, so the scenery was all slightly familiar, and more pleasant than it had been earlier in the day.  As usual there were ruins and hilltop towns, but we were headed towards a little town called Volterra (Voltage from the earth – Thermal energy ???) which we knew nothing about except that it had a camp site.  Campsites are getting scarcer as we move towards winter, with many closing their doors at the end of September.  Luckily we found this one open, and pulled in.  All we knew about the town (from our guide book) was that it was an old Etruscan (pre- Roman) citadel town, and that it has an area where serious erosion over the years has not only taken part of the original Etruscan walls, but also several local churches and other buildings !  We planned to explore in the morning – In the meantime I was exhausted, still not feeling too good, and needed and early night.  All I could manage for supper was a cup of soup. 

Rest of the pics here :-  https://picasaweb.google.com/110185357936043625130/0377RomeToVolterra?authkey=Gv1sRgCMiXsIbm77y6Ig