Discover Livorno and Surroundings

Finally It’s Summer!

Yes! Finally it’s hot and since I’m 100% Florentine this weekend I go to the coast. In addition this weekend take place the Blue Night from Livorno to Piombino.

For all weekend there are guided tours, concerts and lots of events all along the Tyrrhenian coast, called from Livorno to Piombino the Etruscan Coast. I intend to be in Livorno on Saturday late morning, before 11 am because I’d like to take the tour of fossi by boat (fossi are the water canals built by the Medici to defend the city). Next I have walk by the sea and take some picture to the stunning Mascagni Terrace. Of course I want to take some sun and turn red before dinner. Before dinner I want to visit the Giovanni Fattori Museum, who is one of my favorite Tuscan painter. Then I go near Castiglioncello to Caletta where there is the annual Festa del Pesce (Festival of Seafood). It’s a nice festival on the beach where you can taste good fried fish cooked in a huge frying-pan. The night ends with lovely and romantic fireworks. Read the full post »

photo by dan taylor

While it hasn’t been made official yet, the word is out that New Moon, the second Twilight sequel, will not be shot in Volterra as we had reported earlier. Twilight fans and locals are very disappointed, but it seems the production is being “realistic” and saying a town the size of Volterra cannot accommodate all of the filming crew.

Some scenes will still be shot in Volterra (piazza and palazzo dei Priori) but most on-location shots will occur in Montepulciano, another medieval Tuscan hilltop village about an hour away also deemed “more beautiful” for filming.

Montelpulciano is a charming town which we like and highly recommend visiting, but if size matters, Montelpulciano’s medieval center is actually smaller than Volterra’s! Both are beautiful in their own right but more importantly, since Stephanie Meyer’s book is set in and the Volturis family comes from Volterra, fans wanted to see Volterra on the big screen. If you’re coming all the way to Tuscany to shoot on location, does it make sense to not shoot in the actual town which is less than an hour away?

I suppose in the world of movies, anything is possible. Maybe any medieval town is the same as the next one?? Like I said, the announcement has not yet been made officially so we could still be pleasantly surprised. What do you think?

The tiny medieval village of Volterra in central Tuscany will be the setting for the shooting of “New Moon“, the second chapter of the “Twilight” series by Stephenie Meyer. As I read in a recent article on Variety Magazine , Eagle Pictures announced that the cast would move to Volterra for the shootings for the movie for a couple of weeks, most likely in May.

Many movies have been filmed in Tuscany, the last ‘007 movie “Quantum of Solace” comes to mind as one of the latest. That film was partially set in Siena during the Palio horse race days (read our article of the Palio in Siena) . I was wondering, however, why would they choose Volterra for  “New Moon”? The answer is easy for “Twilight” fans but not everyone knows that Stephanie Meyer’s books have one of the most powerful vampire families, the Volturis, come from Volterra and thus an important part of the story is set in this Tuscan village.

Volterra is a true medieval gem and one of my favorite Tuscan cities. I’m really curious to see the city as the setting for some vampire adventures and I think the citizens will also be very excited about that. The “Twilight” book series have been a great success and I hope the “New Moon” movie will make Volterra and Tuscany more popular, especially among younger visitors.

The town has created a blog dedicated to offering news on the upcoming shooting and Volterra in general; check out the New Moon Volterra Town Blog.

Here is a little video I made during a show by the flag throwers of Massa Marittima in Volterra, during the Medieval Festival!

We just got back from the year AD 1398 as did the hundreds of people that attended the medieval festival in Volterra this past weekend, the city’s largest annual event. We also got back to work after our short holiday, and that made it especially hard to return to modern times!

On Sunday August 24th for an entire day for a small fee of 9 euros we entered medieval Volterra and we were able once again to imagine how it was to live in that age.

Read more about our day in medieval Volterra »