Vampires and Volterra

April 29th--Well for those of you that are a fan of the "Twilight" series books, then you know exactly where we went today. I have to admit, had I (Amy) not read the books, the 4 of us would not have taken the 2 hour bus ride to look for vampires. HA! Upon arriving to the city, we went into the tourist information office. The guy working there was trying to get us to get the audio guided tour of the city. My first question was "does it talk about Twilight in it?" So, he proceeded to give me the "New Moon" map of the city. I was pumped then. It mapped out the entire part of the book that took place in Volterra. We were able to follow the map and take pictures of where all the action took place with Alice, Bella, Edward, and the Volturi vampires minus the underground lair. We got to walk through the Piazza dei Priori, the main square with the clock tower. Speaking of the clock tower, while we were there the clock tower struck noon and I anxiously looked around for Edward to come out and "sparkle". Anyway, we walked down the alleyway (Vicolo Mazzoni) where Bella finds Edward and toured the Palazzo Viti which was Alice, Bella, and Edwards way out from underground. In the real world, the Palazzo Viti is a palace that was once used by the Viti family. There is an underground cellar at the palace where we got to sample some wine, cheese, salami and olive oil. From there, we walked down the street to the dark stone archway where Alice, Bella, and Edward exited Volterra. The archway is called the Porta all' Arco gate. This Etruscan gate is Volterra's most famous sight and was built of massive, volcanic tufa stones in the 4th century B.C. After taking the "New Moon" tour of the city, we saw the Roman Theater, grabbed a quick sandwich and did a little shopping. I bought a"New Moon" necklace made of alabaster that has the beautiful flower from the front of the book painted on it. Alabaster is mined in the district of Volterra and alabaster workshops are all over Volterra. With all of this said...no vampires were spotted today. If for no other reason, probably because it was too sunny!