Italy - San Gimignano and Volterra (8 Jul 2011)

Breakfast at the hotel was a complete blah, so much so that I wouldn't mind skipping breakfast the next day.  We visited the Palazzo Del Comune ( the Townhall) after breakfast and scaled up the 54m high tower.  The walk up was pretty creepy because I am generally afraid of heights and it didn't help there were gaps between the steps such that I could see the steps beneath me as I walked up the stairs.  I made my way up the tower in a slow and not-too-steady manner, and was rewarded with a breathtaking view right at the top.  

Afterwards, we rewarded ourselves with Gelato (again!) and drove to Volterra for a late lunch.  Volterra had apparently shot to fame from being mentioned in the 2nd book of the Twilight series - New Moon.  But I found no resemblance between the town and the scenes from the movie, although it seemed that filming took place in the town as there were Twilight guided tours every Saturday.  The town had significantly less tourists than San Gimignano, and was less impressive too.  But every other shop we came across sold items made of Alabaster - apparently the town's speciality craft.

We went back to San Gimignano for dinner and coincidentally, a student orchestra from Holland had a free outdoor performance near our hotel that evening. It was a casual sort of performance, and the musicians were all clad in summer wear (think sleeveless tops and shorts).  Occasionally, the wind would cause the music scores to fly and the musicians would scramble to arrange the sheets and secure them to the music stand with wooden clothes pegs.