Out-of-the-way location keeps vibrant, charming village from being trampled by tourists.
Just a two-hour drive from jammed-with-tourists Florence, you’ll find what is perhaps Italy’s most underrated hill town — Volterra. With rustic vitality and surprising depth, it has an out-of-the-way location that keeps it from being trampled by visitors.
Unlike other famous Tuscan towns, Volterra feels real, vibrant and almost oblivious to the allure of the tourist dollar. Centuries past its prime, Volterra seems to have settled into a well-worn groove; locals are resistant to change. At a recent town meeting about whether to run high-speed Internet cable to the town, a resident grumbled, “The Etruscans didn’t need it — why do we?