Liberation Day Parade, Etruscan Volterra

April 25 is a national holiday in Italy. It commemorates the Italian resistance’s victory over Mussolini’s fascist regime and also the end of the Nazi occupation of Italy in 1945. Here in Montepulciano, the big celebration took place today, Sunday, with parades and music in the square. We had a big driving day ahead of us and had to get on the road, but we caught some of the parade from our window.

Each of the eight contradas (wards/neighborhoods) was represented, with their distinctive colors. As you walk through Montepulciano, you know which contrada you are in because of the flags with crests hanging from the walls. It was a beautiful sight to see the period costumes of each contrada, each with a “king & queen” representative, and at the end, all contradas represented together in the drum corps.

On the way to Cinque Terre, we planned a stop in Volterra, an ancient village dating back to pre-Roman Etruscan times. Parts of one of the gates to the city, “Porta all'Arco,” are thought to date back to the 4th century BC. Three very worn heads symbolize Zeus and his two sons, Castor and Pollux (see the black blobs on the top and sides of the arch gate photo). Anyway, the gate is so significant that during the German occupation in 1944, the townspeople removed the paving stones around the gate overnight to prevent the German troops from destroying the gate. A plaque placed on the 50th anniversary of that event commemorates their deed.Read more