GOOD NIGHT VOLTERRA

My last night in Volterra, the moon is not quite full, but it's close enough. 

I need to go for a walk around this olive farm. I have been trying to find time to do this since I've been here. We have finished dinner, Gabreal was kind enough to take my laundry off the clothes line after the rain and hang my clothes up inside, then during dinner brought them out to me all nearly folded and ready to go. I slipped him 10 Euro which he promptly refused until I begged then insisted he accept. 

Bag and backpack all packed and thoughts of the next adventure in Monarola, Cinque Terre in the back of my mind. 

In the front of my mind is the here and now. Here is Pondere San Lorenzo Agriturismo, now is 5/23/13, 22:00 hours. 

Until recently I thought Tuscany was just a town in Italy. 

Instead I found it was a region made up of many towns in an incredibly bella landscape of rolling hills and mountainsides painted with olive groves, vineyards, herds of sheep and ancient towns.

Volterra has become our home for these last 4 days, well on the outskirts of Volterra, close enough to walk to. And close enough to hear the drumbeats and the bell towers in among the dogs barking and the breeze blowing through the olive trees this night.

 Sitting here on the kilometer long steep drive that connect a few houses to the main road. 

I just needed to soak some more of the Tuscany mountain view in before I retired for the night. 

I could make out the mountains dotted with lights from a few scattered houses and Agraturismo's and the night sky behind them. 

Off in the distance just above the mountains a light show was going on, cloud to cloud lightning, or as we used to call it back home "heat lightning". Not much heat here though. 

Been pretty cold "frado!" the last few days. But it's the warmth of the people that will be the memory that I take back home with me.

That is after 4 days in Cinque Terre and 6 days in Rome. 

But for now I have my rear end firmly planted on this narrow lane and I know that the camera on my IPhone nor the camera in my pocket cannot capture this moment. Only the camera in my mind has even a prayer of taking this all in and replaying it somewhere sometime when I will need a few minutes of the pleasure I'm feeling right now. 

Tomorrow morning I will wake early and see the dawn shining through the cracks of the door shutters.

I will have plenty of time to make this same walk in the daylight. But I don't know that now. For all I know tonight this is my last chance to take this in so I'm making the most of it now. 

Tomorrow we will leave this wonderful place and there will be hills to climb in Manarola to reach our apartment that hangs precariously over the edge of the sea. 

And I think I will be a little less sad as I was when I had to leave Venice for this place. 

Ciao