Medieval Festival at Volterra, Tuscany

It is Sunday 28^th August 2011. Two family friends, my wife and me, are holidaying at Podera S. Barbara, in the tranquil montagna area a few kilometres to the west of Siena, near Simignano, a small hamlet over the hill from Ancaiano, Sovicille, Toscana. Incidentally, Simignano was to be the site for the city that now is Siena, however lack of a suitable water supply changed all that. Anyway, be that as it may, we are off to visit Volterra and enjoy the annual medieval festival that commemorates what the city may have looked like in AD 1398. The journey takes us many miles along a torturous winding road. We are in Italy. We are not alone, Volterra is thronging with people. The festival is obviously an important and popular day for local people and tourists alike. We get our bearings then pay our nine euros entrance fee. Once behind the barriers we encounter AD 1398. As we wander the alleyways and squares our heads spin back and forward trying to catch sight of passing peasants, noblemen and their ladies, all bedecked in realistic looking medieval costume. Bill informed us that we could hire a costume ourselves. We decided not, maybe next time.

Having spent many years working in and with communities back home we were impressed by the commitment of the local people and we assumed, the local authority, or the Volterra equivalent, to make the festival a success. A success it surely was. We are not convinced we would find the same commitment and organisation back home. The place is buzzing with community pride.

We spent some time watching the flag waving, or is it throwing, competition. We understood that this involved groups representing the contrada's of Volterra. A contrada being a community or area within a city. The Palio in Siena involves that city's contradas competing in a horse race. Volterra uses flag throwing. Maybe we have that wrong, it is our best guess. Anyway, it was very entertaining and we were really impressed by the skills displayed.

The streets were full of stalls, where various craftspersons demonstrated their skills and sold their produce and crafts. Probably more interesting to our group were the many food stalls. Mouth watering smells and sights. There were many cheese stalls, mostly varieties of that local delicacy, pecorino. Wonderful. There was a bread stuffed with, to the best of my knowledge, ricotta. I think they said it was called necci, or was that a pasta, not sure. Whatever they call it, I couldn't get enough of it. There were stalls with focaccine and others with medieval sweet treats. No idea what they were called but tasty nonetheless. At one stall I asked if the dark bits in a pastry type knob were chocolate chips. Even the stall holder’s limited English was enough to scold my ignorance. Seems chocolate was not a delicacy in 1398, not by a long shot. My abiding memory will be the smells of cheese and meats roasting.

There were jugglers, costumed people on long stilts, people being dragged through the streets and placed in stocks by a gang of rough looking males carrying a variety of weapons, including fearsome axes and whips. Many of the men wore multi-coloured tights, maybe we should just have hired the gear.

In one square they had a medieval version of line dancing, or perhaps highland dancing, complete with a caller to make sure the participants had some notion of what to do. I recall lots of sinistra, destra and centro instructions being issued, followed by lots of people bouncing first one way then the other. All to lute and flute music. Looked like great fun.

In short, there was never a dull moment, the place was alive from morning until dark. It was a wonderful day and to be recommended.

Another feature; at no time during a long day did I see one drunk person nor anything that even remotely looked threatening. I honestly can say, with some experience, one would struggle to attend such a large, well attended event in the UK, there were thousands there, without some incident to spoil it. In addition I can only recall seeing six police officers all day and they looked pretty laid back. They were toting firearms.

Then off we went back along the twisty, turny road. We stopped in the delightful village of Pieve a Scuola where we sat outside and sampled some local vino rossi and chatted with some local people. They suggested we visit there on the forthcoming Friday evening as it was the start of their annual mushroom festival. Put that in your diary and make sure you call in if in the area.

All in all a very successful day. When next in Toscana give Volterra a whirl, you will enjoy it.

To finish our day we sat in the garden of Pod. S Barbara, listened to crickets, quaffed vino rossi and gazed at the setting sun. Blissful.