Volterra stands at 530 metres on a long ridge in western Tuscany, and it is older than almost everything around it. As Velathri it was one of the twelve cities of the Etruscan league, a power in central Italy before Rome was anything, and the evidence is not in a museum case but in the street: the Porta all'Arco is a fourth century BC Etruscan gate, with three worn stone heads above the arch, and traffic still goes through it.
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If you are visiting San Gimignano, half an hour away, the comparison is the useful thing to know. San Gimignano is medieval, golden, compact and extremely busy. Volterra is Etruscan and Roman underneath its medieval surface, higher, greyer, windier, much larger, and sees a fraction of the visitors. People who prefer one tend to dislike the other.
The Museo Etrusco Guarnacci, founded in 1761 and one of the oldest public museums in Europe, holds more than six hundred Etruscan funerary urns, each with a reclining figure of the dead on its lid. The object to look for is the Ombra della Sera, the Shade of the Evening: a bronze votive figure stretched to an impossible thinness, made in the third century BC, which anticipates Giacometti by around two and a half thousand years.
The town has two further oddities. Its western edge is collapsing: Le Balze are erosion scarps of sand and clay that have been consuming the hillside for centuries, taking an Etruscan necropolis and part of a medieval abbey with them, and they are still moving. And the Medici fortress that dominates the skyline is a working high-security prison, which is why you cannot visit it.
What you pack is set by altitude, wind and a ridge that has no shelter.
The Etruscan Museum, the Gate and the Theatre
Six hundred urns, a gate from 400 BC, and a Roman theatre you can see for nothing.
The Guarnacci needs an hour and a half. The urns are arranged by subject and the repetition is the point: the same reclining figures, the same mythological scenes on the chests, across centuries, with the craft shifting as the Etruscans were absorbed into Rome. The Urna degli Sposi, a terracotta lid with an elderly couple, is startlingly individual among them.
The Porta all'Arco is five minutes away in the walls, and the three eroded heads above the arch are thought to be Etruscan deities. The dark stone of the lower courses is Etruscan and the lighter upper part Roman. There is a plaque recording that the townspeople dismantled the paving to block the gate in 1944 and saved it from German demolition.
The Roman theatre, built under Augustus, is one of the best preserved in Italy, and the practical note is that the best view of it is FREE: a terrace on the Via Lungo le Mura looks straight down into the whole structure, and many visitors pay to walk among the stones having already seen it better from above.
In the centre, the Piazza dei Priori is dominated by the Palazzo dei Priori of 1208, the oldest surviving communal palace in Tuscany and the model for Florence's Palazzo Vecchio. You can climb its tower. The Duomo and the octagonal baptistery stand behind it, and the cathedral's painted wooden Deposition group from the thirteenth century is the thing inside.
Alabaster is the local craft and it is Etruscan in origin, the urns in the museum being carved from it. Workshops around the Via Porta all'Arco still carve by hand, and the Museo dell'Alabastro covers the industry. The distinction worth knowing is between hand-carved local work and imported machine-made pieces, which the workshops will explain if you ask.
For Le Balze, walk out past the Porta San Francesco to the edge: the Badia Camaldolese sits abandoned on the lip of the scarp, with part of the complex already gone over the edge.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
The Tuscan Interior and the Coast
Hill towns, hot springs and a thermal valley of steam.
San Gimignano is thirty minutes northeast and the obvious pairing. Colle di Val d'Elsa, Certaldo and Monteriggioni are in the same direction, all walled and all quieter. Siena is an hour and a quarter and Florence an hour and a half.
The stranger landscape is south. Larderello, forty minutes away, is a geothermal field where the earth vents steam and Italy has generated electricity from it since 1904, the first place in the world to do so; the cooling towers and the steam pipes crossing the hills look industrial and prehistoric at once. The Biancane natural park at Monterotondo lets you walk among fumaroles and boiling pools.
Further on, the Val d'Orcia with Pienza and Montalcino is about two hours, and the free hot springs at Bagni San Filippo and the cascades at Saturnia are in the same direction.
West, the Tuscan coast at Cecina and San Vincenzo is an hour, which makes Volterra an unusual hill town in having a beach within reach. Pisa and the airport are an hour and a quarter.
Getting around: the town sits along a ridge and is larger than it looks, with the museums, the theatre terrace and the gates spread over a walk of twenty minutes end to end, and it climbs in places. Cars park outside the walls. There is NO useful railway: the nearest station is Saline di Volterra, served infrequently, and buses run from Pisa, Florence and Siena via Colle di Val d'Elsa. A car is the practical way to come and essential for Larderello.
When to Go
April to June and September to October, and expect wind in any month.
Volterra is higher and more exposed than most Tuscan hill towns and it feels it: daytime highs from about 10C in January to 29C in July and August, with a near-constant wind on the ridge, cold nights in winter and frost, and rain mostly from October to April.
Spring, April to June, is the best season, with the Balze and the hills green and the walking comfortable.
July and August are hot in the middle of the day but less punishing than the Tuscan lowlands because of the altitude and the wind, which is a real advantage this town has over its neighbours. Volterra AD 1398, a large and well-regarded medieval re-enactment, takes over the town on Sundays in August.
September and October are excellent, with the harvest in the valleys and the light low on the grey stone.
Winter is cold, windy and often wet, with mist filling the valleys below the ridge and some restaurants closed. The Guarnacci and the alabaster workshops carry a winter visit, and the town belongs to its 10,000 residents again.
The wind deserves its own line, because it is the thing visitors notice first and prepare for least: the ridge is exposed on both sides and there is almost nowhere in the town that is sheltered from it.
Is Volterra Safe for Women Travelers
Volterra is a quiet working Tuscan town and very easy to travel alone.
The FCDO publishes no advised-against areas anywhere in Italy. Its guidance concentrates on petty theft in crowded tourist areas and on the ZTL, the limited traffic zones in historic centres that catch drivers out with automatic fines months after the trip.
There is very little tourist crime here, markedly less than in San Gimignano next door, because the visitor volume is a fraction of it. What applies is car break-ins at the car parks outside the walls, so leave nothing visible. Italian police require an in-person report, the denuncia, for the document an insurer wants.
Day to day this is comfortable and quiet. The Piazza dei Priori and the main streets are busy in the early evening for the passeggiata and then settle, eating alone is unremarkable, and the town is lit. It is quiet early out of season. English is spoken at the museums and the workshops, less so elsewhere.
One point of order rather than safety: fans of the Twilight novels sometimes arrive looking for film locations. The books are set here, the films were shot in Montepulciano, and the locations are not in Volterra.
Italy is in the EU, so a UK Global Health Insurance Card or an EU European Health Insurance Card gives you state-provided medically necessary care on the same terms as an Italian resident. That means the same ticket, the co-payment Italians make, rather than nothing, and it does not cover repatriation, so travel insurance sits on top of it. Italian public hospitals are good and the emergency department, the pronto soccorso, treats anyone who arrives. Pharmacies, farmacie, are marked with a green cross, are staffed by pharmacists who can advise and dispense for minor problems, and post a rota for nights and Sundays on the door. Tap water is drinkable across the country, including from the public fountains that are common in Italian towns.
The physical cautions are wind, cobbles and the edge. The ridge is exposed and the wind is strong enough to be genuinely tiring and to make the walls walk unpleasant. The streets are cobbled and steep in sections and slick in rain. Le Balze are active erosion scarps with unstable edges and no fence in places, and they are not a viewpoint to stand on the lip of: the ground there has been falling away for centuries and continues to. The Roman theatre terrace is railed, but the wall walk in places is not. Dial 112.
The Volterra Packing List
A windproof layer, which is the first item on this ridge
A packable rain jacket for women, serving mainly as a windbreak. The ridge is exposed on both sides, there is almost no sheltered ground in the town, and the wind is what visitors underestimate here rather than the temperature. It is also the rain shell from October to April.
Base layers, for altitude and wind
Volterra is a few degrees cooler than the Tuscan lowlands and the wind takes several more off how it feels, while summer middays are still hot. Merino at 160gsm handles that span in one thin layer, insulating under a shell on a windy morning and breathing in the heat of the afternoon. Our merino base layers are 100% Australian merino at 17.5 micron with no synthetic blend. A long sleeve merino wool base layer for women is the layer to bring in any month.
A warm mid layer, October to May
A fleece mid layer. Winter here frosts and the wind is constant, and the Duomo and the museum halls are cold stone interiors.
Shoes for cobbles and a long ridge
Walking shoes with grip. The town is larger than it looks and spread along the ridge, the streets are cobbled and steep in places and slick in rain, and the walk out to Le Balze is on rough ground. Merino wool socks, which keep working damp.
Sun protection in summer
A wide brim sun hat with a cord, because the wind will take an uncorded one, plus sunscreen. The ridge, the theatre terrace and the Balze have no shade.
A refillable bottle
Tap water is drinkable and there are fountains in the town. Worth carrying because the Balze walk and the walls circuit have nowhere to buy anything.
The small things
Cash in euros for the alabaster workshops and small places. An Italian two-pin adapter. A combined museums ticket, which covers the Guarnacci, the Pinacoteca and the alabaster museum. A car plan, because the rail connection is poor and Larderello needs one. And the knowledge that the free terrace above the Roman theatre gives a better view than the paid entrance does.
Essential Resources for Women in Volterra
Emergency numbers: 112 for police, ambulance and fire, free from any phone including a locked mobile, with operators who will find an English speaker. It is the single number across the whole European Union.
Non-emergency police: dial 112 for any emergency, which in Italy reaches police, ambulance and fire, and 113 for the Polizia di Stato. A theft needs an in-person report, the denuncia, to produce the document an insurer requires. English is spoken at the museums and workshops, less so otherwise.
Main hospital or clinic: the Ospedale San Lazzaro in Volterra has an emergency department, with larger hospitals at Pisa and Siena about an hour and a quarter away. Dial 112 for an ambulance. A farmacia, marked with a green cross, posts the duty rota.
Official health authority: the Ministero della Salute, the Italian health ministry. Italy is in the EU, so a UK GHIC or EU EHIC gives you state-provided care on the same terms as an Italian resident, which means the same co-payment rather than nothing, and does not cover repatriation
US Embassy: the United States Embassy in Rome. Rome, with a consulate general in Florence about an hour and a half away, which is the relevant one for Tuscany
Official tourism authority: ENIT, the Italian national tourist board. With the Volterra tourist office for the combined museums ticket covering the Guarnacci, the Pinacoteca and the alabaster museum, and the Volterra AD 1398 re-enactment dates on August Sundays
Le Balze: active erosion scarps that have consumed buildings over centuries and are still moving, with unstable edges and no fence in places. Not a lip to stand on.
The wind: near-constant on an exposed ridge with almost no sheltered ground in the town. It is what visitors underprepare for.
The Medici fortress is a working prison and cannot be visited, which surprises people who have seen it on the skyline all day.
US State Department travel advisory: the Italy advisory. Read the current level there directly rather than relying on a figure printed in any guide.
UK FCDO travel advice: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/italy, and read the safety and security page rather than only the landing page, because that is where the substance sits.
Solo women safety assessment: Volterra is a quiet working Tuscan town of about 10,000 and very easy to travel alone. The Piazza dei Priori and the main streets are busy in the early evening for the passeggiata and then settle, eating alone is unremarkable, and the town is lit; out of season it is quiet early. There is markedly less tourist crime here than in San Gimignano half an hour away, simply because the visitor volume is a fraction of it, and what applies is car break-ins at the car parks outside the walls, answered by an empty boot, with a theft needing the in-person denuncia an insurer requires. English is spoken at the museums and alabaster workshops and less so elsewhere, so some Italian helps. The genuine hazards are the wind and the edge. The ridge is exposed on both sides with almost no sheltered ground in the whole town, and the wind is strong enough to be tiring and to make the walls walk unpleasant, which is the thing visitors underprepare for rather than the temperature. The streets are cobbled, steep in sections and slick in rain. And Le Balze, the erosion scarps on the western side, are genuinely active: they have consumed an Etruscan necropolis and part of a medieval abbey over the centuries, the edges are unstable, there is no fence in places, and they are not a lip to stand on for a photograph.
Reading On
For the country-level picture, start with the Italy travel guide for women. For why a thin wool layer under a windproof beats a thick one on an exposed ridge, read the guide to merino wool base layers for women. Every destination we cover is indexed at the travel packing guide for women, and the base layers are at the Roman Trail collection.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
